Saudi food delivery firm Jahez, which competes with companies like Delivery Hero’s Hungerstation, is targeting a valuation as high as $2.4 billion in an initial public offering that would vault it to the ranks of the biggest start-ups in the Middle East.
Jahez International Company for Information Systems Technology, as the four-year-old firm is formally known, set the price range for the offering later this month at between SR750-850, according to a statement on Thursday.
The company, which hired HSBC Holdings’ local unit to manage the share sale in May, also agreed to sell a 4.99 percent stake to Hassana, the kingdom’s pension fund that oversees more than $250 billion in assets, as a cornerstone investor in the IPO.
The goal represents a huge leap for the firm, which closed a $36 million Series A funding round last year. The boon came partly as a result of shifting consumer habits during the pandemic. Gross merchandise value nearly tripled to SR1.4 billion in 2020 from SR497 million the previous year.
Saudi Arabia’s first tech start-up worth more than $1 billion was stc pay, the digital payment unit of mobile operator Saudi Telecom Co. That firm was valued at $1.3 billion in a funding agreement with Western Union last year.
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