ⓘ Featured image: Bassam Al-Ateia, Founder & CEO of Alsaree3
Alsaree3, a Baghdad, Iraq-based food delivery app and its sister company Al Zajel, have recently closed a 6-figure seed funding round led Iraq Tech Ventures and Shwan Ibrahim Taha, Chairman of Rabee Securities. The company in a press release revealed that the investment round was closed in August. The round also saw participation from a clutch of other investors including Rawaz Rauf, New Venture Manager for the Hiwa Rauf Group; Bassam Falah, founder and Managing Partner of Innovest ME; and Subhi Khudairi, President of Khudairi Group.
Al Zajel is a last-mile delivery and e-logistics services provider in Baghdad.
Founded in 2018 by Bassam Al-Ateia, Alsaree3 provides high-quality customer service, fast deliveries, and an extensive selection of restaurants (450+) in Baghdad. In addition to providing customers a seamless experience, Alsaree3 focuses on creating as much value as possible for its restaurant partners. It developed its own POS technology and hardware for restaurants to use for its orders which restaurants have willingly paid for themselves.
Commenting on the development for Alsaree3, Al-Ateia in a statemen tsaid,
“Alsaree3 was one of the first companies in the whole region who started developing and using these Android POS systems since our start in 2018. This state-of-the-art technology enables our restaurants to accept, print, and check the history for each order. Also, it enables some of our exclusive restaurants to place offline orders. What’s more, the special M2M sim cards in these POS devices reduce the internet cost for the restaurants enormously.”
Within the past year, Al-Ateia noticed an opportunity to use his drivers for C2C, B2B, and last-mile deliveries and founded Al Zajel to meet this need in the market. Al Zajel offers on-demand delivery service within one hour for packages weighing 2kg or less to any location in Baghdad. Together, Alsaree3 and Al Zajel share their own fleet of bikes and drivers and work with additional drivers on a contractual basis during peak hours.
Iraq Tech Ventures and its syndicate of investors were most inspired by Alsaree3’s strong set-up and the team’s ability to provide a consistent, high-quality service despite the countless challenges in Baghdad, and most recently from the restrictions due to COVID-19. Restrictions forced many Iraqis to become new adopters of delivery services like Alsaree3, a trend investors believe will continue as the digital literacy of Iraq’s population increases.
Mohammed Khudairi, of Iraq Tech Ventures, said,
“Alsaree3 is incredibly strong operationally due to the founder’s investment in quality, proprietary technology and his extensive experience operating in Iraq. We have no doubts about Alsaree3 and Al Zajel’s promising performance in the future.”
This is the second venture in Iraq that was successfully brought to market by the collaboration between Iraq Tech Ventures and Shwan Ibrahim Taha.
Speaking of the startup ecosystem of Iraq, Shwan Ibrahim Taha, Chairman of Rabee Securities said,
“I am a firm believer in the future of Iraq that is led by its entrepreneurs. Through our consortium, we are proud to help Iraqi startups like Alsaree3, and we look forward to more investments in the sector.”
