Saudi on-demand delivery service Mrsool received multi-million dollar investments from Saudi Technology Ventures, a venture capital fund anchored by Saudi Telecom Company, Raed Ventures and angel investor Mazen Al Jubeir to expand its footprint.
This is the first outside investment for the company, which was founded in 2015 by Ayman Al Sanad and Naif Al Samri, STV said in a statement on Tuesday. The exact funding amount was undisclosed.
Mrsool had 4 million registered users at the end of 2018 and processed more than 1 billion riyals (Dh979.3) in transactions last year.
“This round comes at the right time, especially with Mrsool looking to strengthen its position among the leading Saudi on-demand delivery service companies while also exploring the opportunity to access other regional markets,” said the Mrsool co-founders in the statement.
Mena represents one of the most untapped venture capital opportunities globally. Investments in 386 start-ups totalled $893 million in 2018, while venture capital funding for the region increased 31 per cent from 2017, according to market researcher Magnitt.
Alongside other global investors, STV led a $200m Series F funding round in ride-hailing company Careem, the largest Mena-focused funding round last year.
“Consumers are becoming increasingly accustomed to the convenience of instantaneous delivery of goods," said Hani Enaya, partner at STV. "We believe the offline-to-online shift in the global delivery market will be even more amplified in the Mena region, supported by extremely high mobile penetration rates in markets like Saudi and the UAE.”
Jay Alammar, principal at STV, and Omar Almajdouie, founding partner at Raed Ventures, will both join Mrsool’s board of directors.
Mr Al Jubeir sits on the boards of Careem and Saudi Arabia’s Nadec foods and Al Tayyar Travel Group, among other companies
