2020 is proving a good year already for startups in Egypt. Y Combinator-backed Egyptian fresh bread and grocery delivery platform Breadfast has raised a seven-figure (USD) investment in a bridge round (pre-Series B) to fuel international expansion across the North Africa and Middle East Region.
“Breadfast is on a mission to drive the emerging markets to a world-class shopping experience. Our customers have been and will always be our top priority. We think that customer experience is underestimated in emerging markets, and our goal is to build the right infrastructure using technology to reach the experience the customer deserves,” Mostafa Amin, the co-founder and CEO of Breadfast said in a statement.
Here Is The Deal
- The investment came from Y Combinator’s founder Paul Graham (his first in an Egyptian startup), Gmail’s founder Paul Buchheit, Endure Capital, Shorooq Partners and ‘very strategic players’ from Saudi, UAE, United States, United Kingdom, and Tanzania.
- The Cairo-based startup had previously raised its seven-figure Series A just nine months ago after making it to Y Combinator.
- Buoyed by the new funding and encouraged by its initial success in Egypt, Breadfast is now targeting aggressive expansion within the next three years across the Middle East, Africa, & Turkey, but starting with Dubai, Riyadh, and Jeddah.
- Mostafa said the startup is expected to launch in Dubai by the end of this year.
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Why The Investors Invested
“We are excited and humbled to join Breadfast’s journey as we firmly believe in the Founders and their unparalleled focus on execution, user experience and scale. We have been working closely with Breadfast to build their operations in UAE, KSA and so forth and cannot wait to dominate the region,” Shane Shin, Founding Partner at Shorooq Partners, said.
A Look At What Breadfast Does
Founded in mid-2017, Breadfast had started by offering next-day delivery of its own fresh bread and bakery products to customers in Cairo. It had since expanded to deliver groceries too. Today, it also announced the soft launch of Breadfast Now, a native cloud supermarket that it claims is the first of its kind in the Middle East and Africa.
Breadfast Now delivers fresh bakery produced daily in Breadfast’s production facilities in addition to breakfast delights and general groceries (including fruits) within sixty minutes across Cairo.
Mostafa Amin, the co-founder and CEO of Breadfast said that most of the SKUs are by Breadfast and the rest are aggregated in their warehouses to be dispatched from there to customers on a daily basis.
“We are dealing directly with the manufacturers and farmers to source these products,” he said.
The startup claims to be delivering tens of thousands of orders every month.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer.
He could be contacted at udohrapulu@gmail.com