The market for food and grocery delivery across Africa and the Middle East is worth nearly $1 trillion. And Egypt, buoyed by a young and growing population, is a big market across both regions.
To that end, Breadfast, Egypt’s leading grocery delivery platform, has secured $26 million in a Series A round from an impressive group of investors. They include lead investors Vostok New Ventures and Endure Capital and participating investors JAM Fund (led by Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen), YC Continuity Fund, a large unnamed Saudi-based fund, Shorooq Partners, 4DX Ventures, and logistics giant Flexport.
The investment comes two years after Breadfast raised a $2 million pre-Series A round. This new investment round brings Breadfast’s total investment to date to more than $33 million since it launched in 2017.
The new capital raised will fuel Breadfast’s rapid expansion into eight new cities across Egypt, scale the technology behind its ‘pocket supermarket’ app, and grow its team as it gears up to expand its extensive grocery delivery service across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Commenting on Breadfast’s growth ambitions, Mostafa Amin, Co-Founder and CEO at Breadfast, says, “We started out baking and delivering fresh bread, and today we are able to give Egyptians access to thousands of items of their basic supermarket supplies at the click of a button.
“We are delighted to be joined by a number of vastly-experienced and strategic investors, whose expertise will not only play a vital role ahead of our expansion across Africa, but also in our future ambitions outside of the continent.”
The story of Breadfast
Through its iOS and Android-enabled app, Breadfast offers scheduled and on-demand delivery of groceries and other household essentials. Deliveries are currently offered in under 60 minutes, with the company planning on bringing that down to 20 minutes by utilizing a portion of the new funding to grow its web of dark stores.
Breadfast’s journey began as a scheduled bakery service delivering freshly made bread and pastries to customers’ doorsteps every morning.
Having experienced the pain of poor service themselves, Breadfast foundersーMostafa Amin, Muhammad Habib, and Abdallah Nofalーset out to improve Egyptians’ access to key staples. Through operational excellence, the company has achieved more than 65% customer retention month over month.
Breadfast’s revenue has grown by over 4x from 2019 to 2020 and over the last two years, its product portfolio has multiplied 10 times, allowing customers a far greater range of products to order.
Today, Breadfast offers more than 2,500 supermarket items, comprising a range of breakfast products as well as other household items including coffee, dairy, meat, fruits, vegetables, personal hygiene products, and a small selection of electronic items.
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The company oversees every part of the supply chain – from building the technology to sourcing goods, distributing them across its web of grocery dark stores, to last-mile delivery. Breadfast prides itself on its ability to handle fresh products, with the majority of its revenues coming from fresh, perishable goods.
Looking ahead
Buoyed by a young and growing population, the market for grocery delivery services across Africa and the Middle East is expanding rapidly.
With $1trillion spent in the MENA region and $50 billion spent in Egypt alone on groceries, the region’s growing demand provides a unique opportunity for Breadfast to capitalize and become a regional leader in the sector.
