When CEO Amir Allam set out pitching his startup idea to restaurants, to put up their menus on his platform elmenus, he met stiff resistance. “Why would any serious food business do that knowing the large competition in the market” was the response he mostly got. Now, ten years down the line, elmenus has not only broken down the walls of resistance, or raised about $10m in VC funding before now, the company has now also secured the backing of one of Africa’s few unicorns, the Fawry Group, in a $10m Series C fund-raise.
Luxor Capital Group, a New York-based hedge fund with $11 billion in assets under management, has also contributed money from North America.
“Attracting new investment from Fawry, Luxor Capital and Marakez — following the endorsement of industry veteran, David Buttress, earlier this year — validates elmenus’ unique strategy. We are accelerating the adoption of online ordering by users, while enabling restaurants with new verticals — to help them scale. This funding demonstrates the investors’ strong belief in our position in Egypt, and our capability to dominate the market,” Amir Allam, CEO of elmenus, said.
Why The Investors Invested
The investment is part of Fawry’s new strategy of investing in fast-growing Egyptian technology companies as a minority stakeholder. Fawry will work closely with elmenus to develop creative solutions that will benefit both restaurants and consumers in addition to investing. Marakez, a renowned Egyptian real estate developer, is also investing.
This is also Luxor’s first investment in the Mena region, a testament to the company’s track record of growth and market opportunities in Egypt. Luxor has a lengthy track record of investing successfully in food technology startups all across the world.
Read also:Every Digital Business Needs a Data Strategy
“Fawry is looking forward to its journey with elmenus, working closely with the executive team and entering many ventures together. By this investment, we show our desire to not only be a payment catalyst but to be a strategic partner to elmenus, its customers, restaurants and its riders. The Egyptian food space has high growth potential, with technology disrupting the status quo, as customers’ needs in food service provision rapidly change,” Ashraf Sabry, CEO of Fawry, said.
Elmenus now has over 1.5 million monthly users.
Elmenus continues to grow quickly, and today’s announcement comes after the introduction earlier this year of David Buttress, the former CEO of global food ordering service JustEat, as an investor and board member.
Elmenus plans to empower 12,000 eateries across 20 Egyptian cities by the end of 2021 with additional data and tool solutions to help them scale their operations. Its cutting-edge digital solutions will also encourage its current database of millions of users to make the conversion to online ordering.
A Look At What Elmenus Does
Founded in 2011 by Amir Allam, elmenus had initially started as a food discovery platform with the aim to help users discover restaurants and menus online.
But after raising a $1.5 million Series A led by Algebra Ventures in 2017, the company, in 2018, pivoted its product into an online food ordering service, with restaurants delivering the orders. The company now counts over 1.5 million monthly users and claims to have achieved 300 percent month-on-month growth.
Read also:Haller Foundation Partners Mara Phones to Boost Technology Accessibility in Rural Africa
“You need to be very focused on what you want to achieve,” said Amir to Wamda, an online tech publication, in 2019. “So, if there is a problem, you need to be very clear on how you want to solve it and how you can take it to the next level. Since day one, we have been trying to solve the problem of making the right decision at the right time for each user and this has been sustained as a vision and it gets very exciting as we progress trying to figure out different solutions.”
Last year, Elmenus launched it own fleet of drivers.
“…it is not easy to sustain your passion and motivation for a long time,” Amir further said.
“A lot of people either give up or they struggle to renew their motivation for the business and I think this is something that one has to be very conscious of. So, unless you have the right motive and the right incentives and the right people to work with, and all of this is aligned, you will be in big trouble,” he added.
elmenus food elmenus food
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