Cairo Grocery Delivery Startup Breadfast Raises $26 Million Investment

Egyptian grocery delivery platform, Breakfast, has announced that it has raised a Series A funding round worth $26 million, rocketing its overall investments to date to a total of $33 million. Co-led by Sweden's Vostok New Ventures and Endure Capital, which has offices in California and Cairo, the round also included participation from JAM Fund, led by Tinder co-founder, Justin Mateen, YC Continuity Fund, Shorooq Partners, 4DX Ventures and Flexport.

The investment will be channeled into Breadfast expansion plans that will see the startup take its services to eight new cities across Egypt, as well as into scaling the tech that fuels its pocket supermarket app - all with a view to equipping itself for even more ambitious expansion plans across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Founded in 2017 by  Mostafa Amin, Muhammad Habib and Abdallah Nofal, Breadfast first turned heads for its efficient next-day delivery of baked goods produced in house, before quickly expanded its services to deliver groceries. The startup was accepted into the world-renowned Y Combinator programme in 2019, the same year that Breadfast reported 4x growth. Since then, its product offerings have increased tenfold, placing it as the leading grocery delivery platform in Egypt.

The company now offers some 2,500 products and manages the whole supply chain, from

building the technology, to sourcing goods, distributing them across its web of grocery dark stores, to last-mile delivery - and it’s this particular point that has ultimately led to its rapid rise.

“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,” said co-founder Mostafa Amin, who also serves as Breadfast’s CEO. “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.”

On the part of Justin Mateen, a prolific investor, this is not the first time he’s dipped his toes into the Egyptian ecosystem, having participated in Cairo-based F&B customer engagement startup, Koinz, in March 2021. Through his JAM Fund, Mateen has been looking to invest in emerging markets and sees Egypt as a prime ecosystem for innovation in the F&B and e-commerce sectors - as well as the young but growing q-commerce sector.

“Breadfast is defining how consumers in emerging markets plan and carry out their grocery shopping,” Mateen said. “The Breadfast team has managed to build a complex operation that offers a seamless experience for customers. Supported by a massive demographic and favorable operating expenses in emerging markets, Breadfast is poised to become a leader in the grocery q-commerce market. I am excited about supporting this team in their future plans.”