Tawseel, a Yemeni food delivery startup, has secured funding from Dubai’s Numu Capital and will scale its operations within Yemen.
Tawseel, a Yemen-based food delivery startup, has secured investment from Numu Capital, a Dubai-based early-stage venture capital firm, according to the startup. The funds will be used to help scale the company’s operations.
Tawseel: Building a comprehensive app for online orders
Tawseel was founded in 2022 by Abdulhamid Thaiban and aims to build a comprehensive app that will allow local restaurants to process online orders. The app will initially serve Yemen’s larger cities.
Jamal Al-Mutarreb, managing director of Numu Capital, said of the deal, “Most of our investments have been historically in [the] GCC and Egypt, and we frankly didn’t expect to meet a startup as sophisticated as Tawseel in Yemen given the current economic situation.”
“The quality of the product they built, their advanced operational processes, and their localized marketing strategies helped us reach a conviction that the Tawseel team will reach their ultimate vision to become the Super App of the Yemeni market,” he added.
Innovative solutions
The newly acquired funds will be used to scale its operation in Yemen, according to the company.
Originally operating under the name Tawseel Company for Food Delivery, the startup previously made headlines thanks to its use of horses and riders as a means of delivering food during one of Yemen’s recurring fuel shortages.
Foodtech on the rise
Foodtech startups are a making inroads across the MENA region. Matbakhi recently raised USD 2.3 million to support the creation of chef-driven food concepts. eGrocery services, such as NOMU, are becoming common across the region and personalized meal delivery services are attracting interest.
MENA region startups raised almost USD 4 billion in 2022. Fintech continued to lead the way, with the UAE, Saudi and Egypt as leading markets, however cleantech and logistics startups also did well.