EGYPT – Breadfast, a grocery delivery startup, has raised a US$26 million Series A funding round to expand into new cities, scale its technology, and move into Sub-Saharan African markets.

The Series A round was co-led by Vostok New Ventures and Endure Capital and included participation from JAM Fund (led by Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen), YC Continuity Fund, Shorooq Partners, 4DX Ventures and Flexport. It brings Breadfast’s total investment to date to more than US$33 million.

The new capital raised will fuel Breadfast’s rapid expansion into eight new cities across Egypt, scale the technology behind its ‘pocket supermarket’ app, and grow its team as it gears up to expand its extensive grocery delivery service across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Through its iOS and Android-enabled app, Breadfast offers scheduled and on-demand delivery of groceries and other household essentials.

Deliveries are currently offered in under 60 minutes, with the company planning on bringing that down to 20 minutes by utilising a portion of the new funding to grow its web of dark stores.

“We started out baking and delivering fresh bread, and today we are able to give Egyptians access to thousands of items of their basic supermarket supplies at the click of a button.

“Our mission is to change how people consume their daily essentials in Africa and the Middle East and, through our dynamic technology and deep understanding of the end-to-end supply chain process in the region, we are growing a simple idea into a product we believe can benefit millions of people across the MENA and Sub-Saharan regions,” said Mostafa Amin, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at Breadfast.

“We are delighted to be joined by a number of vastly-experienced and strategic investors, whose expertise will not only play a vital role ahead of our expansion across Africa, but also in our future ambitions outside of the continent,” he added.

Launched in 2017, Breadfast delivers more than 2,500 supermarket items to customers’ doorsteps every morning, with orders made using a mobile app.

The company owns the entire value chain, in-housing the bread production, logistics and distribution, technology and customer experience, and delivers tens of thousands of orders every month.

Jedar Capital leads Appetitpo’s funding round

Meanwhile, Appetito, an Egyptian grocery delivery startup, has raised US$2 million in its latest fundraising round to tackle the inefficiencies in the Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) supply chain.

Jedar Capital, a US-based early-stage VC focused on MENA and Emerging Asia, led the Pre-Series A round, with participation from Golden Palm Investments, DFS Lab, and a group of prominent angel investors and family offices.

Some of the angel investors had previously invested in similar grocery startups such as Jiffy in the United Kingdom and Chaldal in Bangladesh.

The startup had previously received about US$450,000 in a seed round in April.

Appetito, which launched in March 2020, also uses a dark store model, in which goods are purchased from suppliers, processed in mini fulfilment centres, and then shipped to consumers.

The company began with a wide variety of private label goods, delivering to all areas of Cairo, Giza, and Alexandria the next day and on time.

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