Saudi’s Jumlaty & Egypt’s Appetito Merge Into Foodtech Platform NOMU

Saudi’s grocery delivery startup, Jumlaty, and Egypt-based foodtech tech startup, Appetito, have announced their merger to create a new entity, NOMU. The merger will enable the startups to become MENA’s leading food-tech supply chain platform through NOMU’s market presence in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco.

Both grocery delivery startups were founded in 2020, with Appetito recently partnering with Purity Information Technology to expand to Saudi Arabia. In May 2022, Appetito also acquired a Tunisian logistics startup to fuel expansion in Tunisia and Morocco.

“Appetito and Jumlaty have been, separately but similarly, working hard to reinvent the grocery supply chain,” Shehab Mokhtar, CEO of Appetito and now CEO of NOMU, tells StartupScene. “Both have focused on reliability, speed, and affordability, building a solid reputation and a loyal customer base of families and F&B businesses. Our merger will set us on the path to reach SAR 100 million in revenue and positive EBITDA within 2023, with important synergies on the tech, marketing and procurement fronts.” 

Through the merger, NOMU will have access to a smart grid of 16 warehouses, as well as infrastructure to cover 100,000 F&B stores, according to Appetito. NOMU will be headquartered in Riyadh, with a holding structure in Abu Dhabi’s International Financial Centre. The company is also planning to expand to Pakistan and key sub-Saharan countries in the coming period.

This acquisition comes hot on the heels of PayTabs, a Saudi fintech startup, acquiring Turkey’s social commerce platform Paymes, earlier this week. With the current global economic climate, there have been a number of acquisitions taking place in MENA this year. Some of the notable ones include USA’s Astute Imaging acquiring Egypt’s Dileny Tech, and Saudi’s Morning investing $10 million to acquire mobility startups in Egypt.