Riyadh Based Startup Nana Raises $18 Millions to Expand Across KSA and the Gulf

Online supermarket platform, Nana, has raised $18 million in Series-B funding and intends to expand its services beyond the 14 cities it currently serves, throughout Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC region.

Founded by Ahmad Alsamani, Sami Alhelwah and Abdulmajeed Alsukhan in 2016, Nana gives users the option to order groceries from different supermarkets or shops and have them delivered to their doorstep. They work to connect grocery customers, in-store pickers, supermarkets and last-mile delivery fleet, to deliver the groceries.

The startup claims to be the leading grocery marketplace of Saudi and has partnered with Carrefour (and other major grocers in Saudi Arabia) to be able to make this claim.

The $18 million Series B funding was made possible with a pool of investors from Wamda, SVC, STV, MEVP and other angel investors. 

After the expected spike in demand due to the global corona pandemic, Nana has increased its capacity threefold to be able to meet all its customer’s needs. Nana believes that this sudden shift in behavior will likely contribute to its growth in the long-term as more people get exposed to Nana’s services. 

“In today’s post Coronavirus world, those companies that have positioned themselves to provide essential services to society in normal and challenging times are going to be the winners in the future,” Fadi Ghandour, Executive Chairman at Wamda, said. “Nana is one of those companies. We are very happy to have invested in them”

“Ultimately, we want to become the Amazon of the Middle East and be one of the first technology companies listed in Saudi Arabia,”  Alhelwah added.