Dark Store Nana Raises Funds To Elevate eGrocery Industry
Riyadh-based Nana, which fulfils online grocery orders from its dark stores and delivers within 15 minutes, has raised a total of $50 million in a round led by FIM Partners and STV – which brings the total funding to $80 million to date. The announcement was made as part of the Leap event in Riyadh. […]
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Nana Co-Founders Sami Alhelwah and Ahmad Alsamani
Riyadh-based Nana, which fulfils online grocery orders from its dark stores and delivers within 15 minutes, has raised a total of $50 million in a round led by FIM Partners and STV – which brings the total funding to $80 million to date.
The announcement was made as part of the Leap event in Riyadh. This round has been dedicated towards the expansion of Nana’s dark store coverage throughout the Kingdom and the region with an aim to elevate the eGrocery industry and empower households to conveniently fulfil their grocery needs online thus accelerating the transformational goal from an offline to a purely online grocery shopping experience.
The company successfully attracted several new investors including FIM Partners – a leading emerging and frontier market focused institutional investment manager and sponsor of the region’s first technology-focused SPAC (Nasdaq: FICV), Quencia Capital, Faith Capital, Jahez – the food delivery company which recently went public on Nomu Saudi Stock Exchange, Sunbulah Group, and other strategic investors alongside participation from previous investors including STV, MEVP and Impact46.
Nana had launched on a mission to provide households with a convenient solution to fulfil their grocery needs online. Through a network of micro fulfilment centres or dark stores fully stocked with up to 2,000 SKUs, NanaExpress ensures that all daily grocery needs are delivered straight to customers’ doorsteps within 15 mins.
This groundbreaking business model has successfully redefined the meaning of the traditional grocery store and supported the founders’ vision of elevating the eGrocery industry both locally and regionally thus contributing to its rapid growth within Online Groceries to claim a market leader position with an 18 per cent market share.
Sami Alhelwah, Nana’s Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer said: “We exist to empower every household with a convenient solution that seeks to fulfil their daily, weekly, or monthly grocery needs and have been on this mission ever since we launched Nana back in 2016. Since then, we have sought every opportunity to expand our coverage, optimise our operations and enhance our user experience in the pursuit of this goal and that is why we’re excited to work closely with our investors who share this vision and have an unwavering commitment to elevating the online grocery shopping experience both locally and regionally.”
Sami also added, “Our expansion has resulted in rapid double-digit growth week over week, and the current fundraise will sustain this growth for a considerable time.”
With a drive and sights on elevating the eGrocery industry in the Kingdom and the region, Nana will mobilise the investment round proceeds to solidify and establish its operations and presence regionally with a target of 150+ dark stores by 2022, most are in Saudi to cover all the main cities within the Kingdom.
