Saudi food delivery market valued at $511m

Digitization, and emergence of advanced online services, is expected to drive the delivery market in the next five years. (Supplied)
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Updated 19 February 2021
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Saudi food delivery market valued at $511m

  • Noon, an online platform backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Dubai businessman Mohamed Alabbar, announced it is launching a restaurant delivery service

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s online food ordering and delivery market was valued at $511.21 million last year and is forecast to grow 10.05 percent per annum until 2026, according to a new report.

“Even after the challenge of pandemic in the 2020, the market showed a consistent growth. Digitization, and emergence of advanced online services is expected to drive the Saudi Arabia online food ordering and delivery market in the next five years,” according to a new study released by the Reportlinker global research company.
The growth of the sector was emphasised this month with the announcement of the entry of two new operators into the increasingly competitive market.

HIGHLIGHT

Sector if set to grow by 10.05 percent per annum over the next five years, according to new research.

Noon, an online platform backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Dubai businessman Mohamed Alabbar, announced it is launching a restaurant delivery service.
The platform plans to start on-boarding restaurants from February, with a full rollout of services due to start in March in the UAE and Saudi Arabia later in the year.
The Noon announcement came hot on the heels of the launch of Kitch, another food delivery service launched in Saudi Arabia and the UAE by Dubai-based businessman Walid Hajj and Saudi entrepreneur Fahad Alhokair.
Kitch will open four delivery kitchens in Riyadh within the first quarter of 2021 and will be opening an additional 15 kitchens across the GCC throughout the year.


Qatar wealth fund plans to invest in 5 new VC funds 

Updated 12 sec ago
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Qatar wealth fund plans to invest in 5 new VC funds 

DOHA: Qatar Investment Authority plans to invest in five new venture capital funds as part of an ​expanded $3 billion venture capital program, the sovereign wealth fund said on Monday.

The new funds, called Greycroft, Ion Pacific, Liberty City Ventures, Shorooq and Speedinvest, are set to open offices in Doha in an effort to develop Qatar as a venture capital hub, it said in a statement.

The “Fund of Funds” initiative was unveiled in 2024 to attract venture capital firms to Qatar, ‌build a ‌robust environment for entrepreneurs and help diversify ‌its ⁠economy away ​from fossil ‌fuel revenues, as the country follows the path of other wealthy Gulf peers.

Qatar’s prime minister on Sunday announced an expansion of the fund to reach up to $3 billion.

“This year, we move from momentum to scale,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said as he opened the Qatar edition of the Web Summit technology conference.

The ⁠expansion would potentially target investments besides series A and B funding rounds.

“We are ‌now expanding the scope to do ‍later rounds, so that may open ‍up conversations with a different set of managers,” said Mohsin ‍Pirzada, the head of funds at QIA, in an interview with Reuters.

“We will continue to be quite flexible and support earlier stages as well, but there are sufficient pools of capital within the country to ​go after those types of opportunities,” he said, citing credit lending facilities.

The QIA has assets under management ⁠worth $580 billion, according to Global SWF, a sovereign wealth fund tracker, and late last year it launched its own AI-focused company Qai as it bets on the booming sector to drive economic diversification.

As part of its efforts, the country has launched a pilot computing credit program that provides free computing for startups that are based in Doha, which could be applicable to managers that are part of the Fund of Funds scheme.

The pilot program is going to be “a big differentiator in terms of what our program is offering ‌vis-a-vis our peers in the region,” Pirzada said.