Egyptian logistics and technology start-up OneOrder has raised $3 million in a new funding round that will help the company to boost its in-house operations and core technology.
The funding round was led by Nclude, an investment platform focused primarily on FinTech innovation.
Egypt-based early-stage venture capital firm A15 and Delivery Hero Ventures, a fund backed by global food delivery giant Delivery Hero, also participated in the latest round.
OneOrder will use the fresh capital to boost its tech talent, in-house operations, increase sales, improve its market share and proprietary technology, it said in a statement on Monday.
The company will also “deploy additional capital into scaling its offline presence and expand its warehouse footprint” across Egypt and the Middle East and North Africa region.
Joined by prominent global investors with deep knowledge and extensive expertise in our sector, we look forward to our next phase of rapid growth
Tamer Amer,
co-founder and chief executive of OneOrder
“Aside [from] improving efficiency, we are reducing costs and impacting restaurants’ bottom lines,” said Tamer Amer, co-founder and chief executive of OneOrder.
“Joined by prominent global investors with deep knowledge and extensive expertise in our sector, we look forward to our next phase of rapid growth.”
Founded in October 2021, OneOrder aims to address inefficiencies and structural problems faced by restaurants when sourcing supplies, such as inconsistent prices, unreliable quality and irregular delivery timings.
The company's platform allows restaurant owners to interact with a number of small, fragmented suppliers and vendors from whom they source their products, including meat, vegetables and equipment.
The latest funding has brought the total capital raised so far by the company to $10.5 million.
OneOrder is using technology to solve the supply chain pain points in Egypt’s $40 billion hotel, restaurant and catering (HoReCa) market, such as lack of product availability, price fluctuations, product consistency, on-time and accurate delivery and a lack of working capital financing, it said.
The start-up aims to use artificial intelligence and machine-learning technology to ensure restaurants are never out of stock during both high and low-season, and eliminate waste.
“The explosive growth of the business in the last year is testament to the huge value that OneOrder’s industry-focused solution has been able to generate for its HoReCa customers,” said Brendon Blacker, managing partner of Delivery Hero Ventures, who joined OneOrder’s board.
In Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, OneOrder has a total addressable market of 400,000 restaurants that on aggregate spend $40 billion annually, the company said. Due to the lack of vertically integrated supply chains, these restaurants spend between 6 per cent and 7 per cent of their revenue to ensure supply chain stability.
Venture capital funding in Egypt more than doubled to $307 million in the first half of this year from a year earlier, ranking it third in the Mena region, according to start-up data platform Magnitt.
The number of deals in the country grew by 22 per cent annually to 78 during the first six months of the year, it said.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Profile of RentSher
Started: October 2015 in India, November 2016 in UAE
Founders: Harsh Dhand; Vaibhav and Purvashi Doshi
Based: Bangalore, India and Dubai, UAE
Sector: Online rental marketplace
Size: 40 employees
Investment: $2 million
New process leads to panic among jobseekers
As a UAE-based travel agent who processes tourist visas from the Philippines, Jennifer Pacia Gado is fielding a lot of calls from concerned travellers just now. And they are all asking the same question.
“My clients are mostly Filipinos, and they [all want to know] about good conduct certificates,” says the 34-year-old Filipina, who has lived in the UAE for five years.
Ms Gado contacted the Philippines Embassy to get more information on the certificate so she can share it with her clients. She says many are worried about the process and associated costs – which could be as high as Dh500 to obtain and attest a good conduct certificate from the Philippines for jobseekers already living in the UAE.
“They are worried about this because when they arrive here without the NBI [National Bureau of Investigation] clearance, it is a hassle because it takes time,” she says.
“They need to go first to the embassy to apply for the application of the NBI clearance. After that they have go to the police station [in the UAE] for the fingerprints. And then they will apply for the special power of attorney so that someone can finish the process in the Philippines. So it is a long process and more expensive if you are doing it from here.”
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U19 World Cup in South Africa
Group A: India, Japan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka
Group B: Australia, England, Nigeria, West Indies
Group C: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Scotland, Zimbabwe
Group D: Afghanistan, Canada, South Africa, UAE
UAE fixtures
Saturday, January 18, v Canada
Wednesday, January 22, v Afghanistan
Saturday, January 25, v South Africa
UAE squad
Aryan Lakra (captain), Vriitya Aravind, Deshan Chethyia, Mohammed Farazuddin, Jonathan Figy, Osama Hassan, Karthik Meiyappan, Rishabh Mukherjee, Ali Naseer, Wasi Shah, Alishan Sharafu, Sanchit Sharma, Kai Smith, Akasha Tahir, Ansh Tandon
