Saudi Restaurant Management Startup Foodics Lands a Gargantuan $4 Million Investment

Foodics, a Saudi startup offering an online management system for restaurants, has just raised a $4 million investment in its Series A round, led by Saudi VCs Raed Venture and Riyad TAQNIA Fund (RTF), along with Naseel Holding and 500 Startups.

Founded in 2014 by Khobar-based entrepreneurs Ahmad Alzaini and Musab Alothmani, the startup enables restaurants to manage their employees’ schedules, salaries, inventory, and time-sheets through an iPad-based POS system, entering a market where the few competitors - Oracle's Micros system, Omega's POS and NCR - are global giants.

The Saudi pioneers, who were university colleagues, were incubated by Badir Technology Incubator in 2015, and were selected by Forbes as one of the 50 most promising startups in Saudi Arabia. With over 100 F&B brands in Saudi and the UAE using the startup's management system, the company now runs its team of 52 from its offices in Riyadh, Jeddah, Khobar and Dubai.

“We are pleased to see the success of this round and the contribution of highly sophisticated and strategic investors to the company,” said Omar Almajdouie, founding partner of Raed Ventures, commenting on the startup’s success as an indicator of Saudi companies being able to enter into complex technological fields that used to be exclusive to foreign companies. According to Wamda, the F&B sector in Saudi Arabia is one of the largest in the GCC region - hogging 59 percent of the market in the Gulf - with over $70 billion in sales in 2016.

Main photo: Courtesy of Foodics.