Cairo’s Appetito raises $450K in seed funding

Among those who raised the funds was a group of Saudi angel investors headed by Ahmed Al Alola, an early-stage investor who was one of the early backers of Saudi’s grocery appSary and Afropreneurs Fund, an African early-stage technology fund that has previously backed top Africa-based startups such as Andela, Flutterwave and  Trella.

The round also saw participation from Jedar Capital, an emerging VC focusing on early stage startups in the Middle East, Africa & Emerging Asia.

Appetito, which was launched in March last year, functions through a dark stores model where products are sourced from manufacturers, stored in mini fulfilment centres then delivered to household customers.

“We’re proud of what we have achieved in just a few months from our launch. We’re privileged to have such prominent investors backing us. With their support and the team we’re building, I’m confident we will be in a leading position in the global race of grocery delivery,” said Shehab Mokhtar, founder and CEO  of Appetito.

Al Alola said: “Observing the radical change in consumer’s behaviour post-coronavirus, the grocery delivery market is expanding rapidly in the region. I believe Appetito, with its stellar team, is well positioned to lead that segment and capture the market by delivering superior experience compared to what is currently available in most of the African space.”

The startup began with a wide range of private label products serving all areas of Cairo, Giza, and Alexandria with next day and pre-scheduled deliveries.

“Our investment into Appetito’s seed round follows on our proven thesis of investing in strong founders with unique local insights and a bias towards execution. We are excited by what Shehab and his team have achieved so far, and we are very bullish on the Egyptian early-stage ecosystem,” said Idris Bello, managing partner, Afropreneurs Fund.

The startup began with a wide range of private label products serving all areas of Cairo, Giza, and Alexandria with next day and pre-scheduled deliveries

Appetito has recently expanded its product portfolio to include more than a thousand well-known consumer brands.

“We are excited to be part of Appetito’s journey in Egypt and MENA region. We have been watching Appetito’s execution and the team’s growth focused approach with very limited resources early on, this was a clear message to us on how resilient and focused they are,” said Sherif Nessim, founder and managing director of Jedar Capital. 

“With the digital transformation happening in Egypt where online commerce growth is skyrocketing and saw a huge leap with Covid 19, more and more customers now are adopting online grocery shopping as their standard now. We believe that Appetito’s model focusing on dark stores rather than aggregating from grocery retail stores will add value and differentiation in the market and play a pivotal role in terms of operational efficiency and gross margin contribution,” he continued.