Breadfast, an Egyptian grocery delivery startup, has raised $26 million in a Series A round led by Vostok New Ventures and Endure Capital, with participation from JAM Fund, led by Tinder’s co-founder, YC continuity fund, Shorooq Partners, 4DX Ventures, and Flexport.
Since its launch in 2017, the company has invested more than $33 million in total. This is one of the region’s largest investments so far.
Breadfast was founded by Mostafa Amin, Muhammad Habib, and Abdallah Nofal as a dedicated baked goods platform, but it has now expanded to include scheduled and on-demand delivery of other types of groceries and other household essentials.
Every morning, Breadfast delivers over 2,500 supermarket products to customers’ doorsteps, with purchases made through a mobile app.
The company owns the entire value chain, including bread production, logistics and distribution, technology, and customer experience, and delivers tens of thousands of orders per month.
Breadfast will use the new funds to accelerate its expansion into eight new cities across Egypt, scale the technology behind its ‘pocket supermarket’ app, and expand its team as it seeks to expand its grocery delivery service across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Breadfast delivers groceries and other household essentials on a schedule or on demand via its iOS and Android app. Deliveries are currently offered in under 60 minutes, but the startup plans to reduce this to 20 minutes by using a portion of the additional funds to expand its dark store network.
“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. Our mission is to change how people consume their daily essentials in Africa and the Middle East and, through our dynamic technology and deep understanding of the end-to-end supply chain process in the region, we are growing a simple idea into a product we believe can benefit millions of people across the MENA and Sub-Saharan regions,” said Mostafa Amin, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at Breadfast.
“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.”
Mateen, head of JAM Fund, said Breadfast was defining how consumers in emerging markets plan and carry out their grocery shopping.
“The Breadfast team has managed to build a complex operation that offers a seamless experience for customers. Supported by a massive demographic and favorable operating expenses in emerging markets, Breadfast is poised to become a leader in the grocery q-commerce market. I am excited about supporting this team in their future plans,” he said.
Björn von Sivers, investment manager at VNV Global, said he was excited about the potential of Breadfast.
“Over the past few years, Breadfast fueled its growth by offering something that’s highly scarce in emerging markets; an exceptionally good customer experience and solid operational excellence. We see Breadfast becoming one of the most successful companies to come out of Africa and the Middle East,” he said.