🐢 The Kingdom's new unicorn

Plus: Meet the graduates of The Garage Plus accelerator

Author

FWDstart
December 19, 2023

Happy Tuesday! The Kingdom’s got itself a fintech unicorn 🦄

Tamara, the fintech specialising in BNPL, is officially KSA’s first homegrown fintech unicorn, after bagging a cool $340 million in its Series C.

SNB Capital and Sanabil Investments led the round with support from the likes of Shorooq Partners, Pinnacle Capital, Impulse, and more.

Tamara intends to deploy the fresh funds on new products and services, going beyond BNPL and targeting opportunities in shopping, payments and banking services in Saudi and across the GCC.

Today’s briefing is a 5 min read:

  • 🚀 Meet the 16 new graduates of The Garage Plus accelerator

  • ‍ 💊 Chefaa raises $5.25 million to simplify the prescription ordering process

  • ➕ Plus: Saudi Arabia announces new rules to regulate the licensing of the BNPL sector

Start-ups

🛠️ Say hello to The Garage Plus accelerator’s 16 newest graduates! The Riyadh-based accelerator which is offered in partnership with Google for Startups, celebrated the graduation of its 2nd cohort, which includes start-ups from 5 MENA countries and 12 diverse sectors, last week.

A new startup district in Riyadh, The Garage, offers a unique blend of incubators, accelerators, and community events to foster growth and networking opportunities for local and international tech startups and SMEs.

  • The Garage Plus programme is a global accelerator targeting innovative tech entrepreneurs and startups, offering comprehensive support and scaling opportunities across four cohorts.

📝Let’s introduce you to the graduating start-ups, shall we…

🇯🇴 Jordan

💼 Capifly: A fintech that provides growing technology companies with quick and non-dilutive capital, against annual recurring revenue.

  • Founder-check: Dunya Bashiti and Hasan Al Shami (2022)

  • Back in October, the company secured a $1 million pre-seed funding round from investors including Oasis500, BLDR Ventures, Joa Capital, Ahli Fintech, along with other angel investors from Jordan and KSA

📱 askPepper: A start-up providing mobile phone ordering and payment solutions with scanning, on-premise ordering and payment, social media and internet links for delivery and pickup services.

  • Founder-check: Emad Ejielat and Samira Owaynat (2021)                                                     

🌱 Ivvest: An agritech startup that leverages science and technology to develop the most cost-efficient, scalable and easy to operate indoor farming solutions in the MENA region.

🇧🇭 Bahrain

🎓 Unipal: A Bahrain-born online platform offering exclusive benefits for students using an innovative digital student ID card.

  • Founder-check: Ali Alalawi and Ali Al Shaer (2020)

  • The start-up raised  $500,000 back in July with participation from Tenmou and Flat6labs to support their Saudi expansion

🇦🇪 UAE

💊 Yalla RX: A health-tech startup offering advanced analytical and marketing services for pharmaceutical and healthcare businesses in the Middle East.

🇲🇦 Morocco

🛍️ YouCan: A start-up offering a user-friendly e-commerce platform for aspiring solopreneurs and businesses, to create online stores without the need for tech skills.

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia

🖨️ PrintHub: A start-up offering packaging solutions for businesses, featuring customisable templates, a design lab for real-time previews, and instant pricing quotes.

📅 Eventful: A startup offering an innovative app for hassle-free event planning, offering transparently priced, ready-made packages for various occasions like weddings and birthdays, tailored to your specific needs.

📈 Exitval: A Saudi start-up offering entrepreneurs a comprehensive platform for business valuation, investor relations management, and centralised data-room file tracking and uploading, ensuring enhanced control and streamlined governance.

👔 As3a: A platform connecting employers with Saudis seeking flexible jobs, offering a streamlined experience for hourly employment opportunities.

🚰 Hydrojeen: A Saudi-based smart water monitoring app that helps users reduce water waste and address the issue of home leaks or any other causes of high water bills

🏋️‍♀️ 4UP: A fitness app tailored for women in the Arab region, offering a complete exercise and nutrition plan to assist in achieving fitness goals.

🚚 diggipacks: A logistics tech start-up spanning Saudi Arabia and the GCC, offering integrated multi-vendor delivery solutions and advanced technology for optimised order fulfilment and storage.

🖨️ 3DX: A biotech start-up specialising in custom medical implants using advanced 3D printing, focusing on PEEK materials to aid in detailed surgical planning.

⚽ fanZ: A Saudi sportstech app that gamifies football by letting users predict match outcomes and win rewards through its live-scores feature.

🍽️ MBSHR: A start-up offering hospitality businesses contactless QR-based digital menu management software for ordering and marketing.

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia has announced new rules to regulate the licensing of the BNPL sector. The rules include provisions related to licensing requirements, regulatory measures such as internal policies and procedures, information security standards and measures to combat financial crimes, SAMA stated.

Healthtech

🏥 Here's Chefaa! The Egyptian-based e-pharmacy benefits platform that helps chronic patients order, schedule, and refill recurring prescriptions.

And, they just secured $5.25 million in their latest series A funding round!

  • Founded in 2017 by Dr. Doaa Aref and Dr. Rasha Rady, the healthtech start-up connects over a million monthly users to more than 1,100 pharmacies across Egypt & KSA.

💰 Investor lowdown: This funding round was co-led by Newtown Partners (South Africa) and Global Brain (Japan), with key contributions from GMS Capital Partners LLC (US), Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (Nigeria), and M3, Inc. (Japan).

🏃 Healthcare hurdle

Despite technological advances, many across the GCC and SSA regions still face hurdles in accessing timely and reliable healthcare services. 

Addressing this challenge involves more than just availability; it's about tailoring healthcare to meet the varied requirements of both patients and providers effectively.

🌉 Bridging the gap

Chefaa's digital platform bridges the gap between users and a vast network of local pharmacies, ensuring easy access to medications and healthcare resources.

Their mobile app, with over 800,000 downloads, simplifies the process of ordering, scheduling, and refilling prescriptions, making it a hassle-free experience for users.

The platform not only guarantees efficient delivery of medicines and healthcare services but also offers transparent tracking through the app, enhancing the user experience.

Additionally, their round-the-clock "Ask Pharmacist" service provides dependable support, ensuring patients always receive the correct medication or appropriate alternatives when needed.

🔮 Flashforward

Having recently expanded into Saudi Arabia, Chefaa intends to utilise its new funding to strengthen its presence in the kingdom and scale up its models aimed at digitising the supply chain.

💰 Funds

🌱 Flat6Labs has opened applications to the third cycle of its Seed Funding Program, offering Saudi entrepreneurs up to SAR 500,000 in funding, investor network access, and market expansion opportunities.

💰 Saudi Arabia has launched a new financial technology program called Makken, which will aim to empower 150 emerging fintech companies over the next three years.

💼 eWTP Arabia Capital (eWTPA) has secured a commitment from Jada Fund of Funds for its $1B fund growth-stage technology and energy startups in the region. The new fund is the second in eWTPA’s portfolio, which is a joint venture fund between Saudi’s PIF and Alibaba.

🔬 The King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) has launched Ignition, an incubator for local and international entrepreneurs and startups in the semiconductor industry. The incubator program will run for 52 weeks and grant access to KACST’s broader facilities and laboratories.

📰 What we’re reading

⏱️ Poll time!

Which of the following graduate start-ups are you most excited by?

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👋 Message from the team

Thanks for reading! Have a terrific week and we’ll see you all again on Friday.

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