Growdash, a UAE-based SaaS platform that specializes in restaurant marketing and operations has raised $1.8 million in a Seed round aimed to accelerate its expansion plans into Saudi Arabia .
The funding round was led by Oryx Fund, a MENA focused investment fund from Hambro Perks, and Oraseya Capital, the venture capital arm of Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority (DIEZ).
Sean Trevaskis, CEO, stated, “We are delighted to have closed our seed round; we would like to publicly thank our highly driven and deeply passionate team of Growdashian’s, plus our forward-thinking customers who, rightly, demand access to the best data analytics and digital growth strategies.”
Founded in 2022 by Sean Trevaskis and Enver Sorkin, Growdash enables restaurant marketing and operational teams to build, execute and manage profitable growth strategies across digital sales channels, working with over 300 restaurant brands across 4000 locations in the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar.
According to Enver Sorkun, Chief Experience Officer (CXO), Growdash is building a best-in-class tech stack that will enable restaurants to tackle a huge industry-wide ROI opportunity. Restaurants deserve technology that enables them to operate their digital growth strategies and investments in a data-driven, autonomous manner via a purpose-built suite, just like their e-commerce counterparts have been able to achieve over the past 10 years through resources like Shopify.”
With this seed financing,Growdash aims to accelerate the its product roadmap, doubling-down on machine learning and building new, innovative features that align with our product methodology of: insight, decision, action.”
Sean added, “We will also open our technology to restaurants in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia later this year and have exciting plans to seize the first-mover opportunity that is apparent in Central Eastern Europe.”
Speaking of their investment in Growdash, Ali Qaiser, General Partner at Oryx Fund and Hambro Perks, mentioned; “We believe Growdash is a game changer for the region’s competitive food and beverage sector by integrating all digital data points from food aggregators and their broader digital presence into a single business intelligence platform. We are excited about Growdash’s growth potential and look forward to supporting their scaling efforts by leveraging the power of data.”
Julien Plouzeau, Senior Partner at Oraseya Capital, added, “Through its investments, Oraseya Capital is keen on fostering innovation and advancing growth within the MENA region. Growdash’s cutting-edge software is the perfect profile for the type of innovative startups we’re looking to support, ones with a promising future ahead.
Sean & Enver have an early-mover advantage in a fast-growing segment, enabling growth strategies across digital sales channels and drastically increasing ROI on growth and marketing spends. Both have a deep understanding of the F&B industry’s challenges, as ex-operators, and their ability to build a scalable, robust tech infrastructure.
Last year the startup raised USD 750,000 in a pre-seed funding round which saw participation from Flat6Labs, Plus Venture Capital (+VC), Judah VC, and TPN Investments, as well as angel investors, Abdulhamid Alomar and Zeid Husban.
The capital was intended to hire new talent, improve its capabilities with innovative features, and expand its services across the region.