MEVP's Saudi Investment Nana Raises USD 50 Million in New Funding
Riyadh-based Nana, which fulfills online grocery orders from its Dark Stores and delivers within 15 minutes, has raised a total of $50m in a round led by FIM Partners and STV – which brings the total funding to $80m to date. The announcement was made as part of Leap event in Riyadh. This round has been dedicated towards the expansion of Nana's Dark Store coverage throughout the Kingdom and the Region with an aim to elevate the e-grocery industry and empower households to conveniently fulfill their grocery needs online thus accelerating the transformational goal from an offline to a purely online grocery shopping experience. The company successfully attracted several new investors including FIM Partners - a leading emerging and frontier market focused institutional investment manager and sponsor of the region’s first technology focused SPAC (Nasdaq: FICV), Quencia Capital, Faith Capital, Jahez – the food delivery company which recently went public on Nomu Saudi Stock Exchange, Sunbulah Group, and other strategic investors alongside participation from previous investors including STV, MEVP and Impact46.
Nana had launched on a mission to provide households with a convenient solution to fulfill their grocery needs online. Through a network of micro fulfillment centers or Dark Stores fully stocked with up to 2,000 SKU’s, NanaExpress ensures that all daily grocery needs are delivered straight to customers’ doorsteps within 15 mins. This groundbreaking business model has successfully redefined the meaning of the traditional grocery store and supported the founders’ vision of elevating the e-grocery industry both locally and regionally thus contributing to it’s rapid growth within Online Groceries to claim a market leader position with 18% market share. While NanaHyper’s wide selection of 40,000 SKU’s provides households with the perfect solution to shop for their weekly and monthly groceries with the utmost convenience and superior quality of products and prices. Today, 90% of Riyadh’s daily grocery needs are covered through NanaExpress with plans to cover 100% of Riyadh in addition to Saudi Arabia’s main cities throughout the year.
Sami Alhelwah, Nana’s Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer said: “We exist to empower every household with a convenient solution that seeks to fulfill their daily, weekly, or monthly grocery needs and have been on this mission ever since we launched Nana back in 2016. Since then, we have sought every opportunity to expand our coverage, optimize our operations and enhance our user experience in the pursuit of this goal and that is why we’re excited to work closely with our investors who share this vision and have an unwavering commitment to elevate the online grocery shopping experience both Locally and Regionally.” Sami also added “Our expansion has resulted in rapid double digit growth week over week, and the current fundraise will sustain this growth for considerable time”.
Commenting on the fund raise Ankit Sarwahi, Managing Director at MEVP, who were the first institutional investor in Nana, said “We are committed to the cause of bringing top notch experiences to MENA users through our investments and Nana is a prime example of our vision. We will continue to be passionately behind this team in their relentless pursue of the quick commerce market.”
With a drive and sights on elevating the e-grocery industry in the Kingdom and the Region, Nana will mobilize the investment round proceeds to solidify and establish its operations and presence regionally with a target of 150+ Dark Stores by 2022, most are in Saudi to cover all the main cities within the Kingdom.