UAE’s Online Flower Marketplace Floranow Closes Series A Round with $3 Million

Dubai-based B-to-B online floral marketplace Floranow has closed a $3 million Series A round. The investment round was co-led by Wamda and Global Ventures, and includes previous investors such as Dash Ventures and Jabbar Internet Group, as well as new investors Sirocco Holdings, Adamtech Ventures, Zuaiter Holding Capital, HB Investments, and other regional angel investors. 

The startup will use this latest round of funding to support Floranow's growth in Kuwait and further its expansion into the GCC, starting with Saudi Arabia, as well as also focusing on optimising its proprietary marketplace technology.

Established in 2016 by Charif Mzayek, UAE-based Floranow connects horticulturists and suppliers from around the world directly to flower retailers through its online B-to-B marketplace. Since then, Floranow has over 12,000 articles on its marketplace and has successfully added hundreds of growers from around the world, including Colombia, China, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Through its platform, Floranow disintermediates the marketplace for horticultural produce and minimises the variability in demand for florists, effectively overcoming several layers of a costly and inefficient supply chain. 

"We are very excited to close this round that will support our efforts to build a global marketplace linking growers to buyers across the floral industry. We continue to expand our network of partners from China to Colombia and Holland to Kenya, digitising and optimising supply chains and creating value for all stakeholders involved,” says founder and CEO, Mzayek.

"Charif is an industry veteran with deep knowledge of the sector and through Floranow, he and his team have built a robust digital B-to-B supply chain and logistics infrastructure that is poised to reshape the floral retail industry," said Fadi Ghandour, Executive Chairman at Wamda. 

The startup had previously raised its first round of financing from Jabbar Internet Group, Dash Ventures, and Wamda back in December 2017. According to data from UN's Commercial Trade and the International Trade Statistics Database, imports of cut flowers were worth a total of $124 million across the GCC in 2017, a 65% increase from $75 million in 2010, with global exports are estimated at over $20 billion.