Middle East ride-hailing app Careem is planning to spend up to $150 million (Dh550m) to launch its food delivery business as early as September, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
Careem, the main Middle East rival of Uber, has been trialing food delivery services after announcing in February it had acquired regional online restaurant listing platform RoundMenu.
The Dubai-based company is in talks with investors to raise as much as $150m to finance the launch of CareemFood as part of an existing fundraising round, said one of the sources.
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Reuters reported in March that Careem was in early talks to raise as much as $500m from investors.
CareemFood will be launched in Pakistan as soon as September and then in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf countries, and Egypt, said a second source.
It will compete against UberEats, Deliveroo, Zomato, and Talabat which already operate in the region.
The sources did not say which investors Careem were in talks with.
Careem’s investors include German carmaker Daimler, China’s largest ride-haling firm DiDi Chuxing, and Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding.
There is strong demand for food delivery in the Middle East, particularly during the summer months in the Gulf where temperatures can soar above 50 degrees Celsius in the summer.
Careem, which says it has 24 million registered users, competes head-to-head with Uber in many major Middle East cities including Dubai, Riyadh, and Cairo.
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Joker: Folie a Deux
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Director: Todd Phillips
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Score
Third Test, Day 1
New Zealand 229-7 (90 ov)
Pakistan
New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat
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The biog
Name: Younis Al Balooshi
Nationality: Emirati
Education: Doctorate degree in forensic medicine at the University of Bonn
Hobbies: Drawing and reading books about graphic design
Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
