The UAE-based B2B platform digitizing the ordering process between restaurants and food suppliers in the UAE and KSA, Kaso(Formerly ElKaso) has announced the appointment of Frank Biedka, former CTO of leading European e-commerce platform, Zalando, upon the closure of their most recent investment from global acceleratorY Combinator.
Founded in early 2021 by veteran entrepreneurs Manar Alkassar and Ahmed Soliman, Elkaso provides a Tech-enabled platform connecting restaurants with suppliers in time to refill their stock needs or make last-minute orders on demand. The Co-founders are no strangers to the world of tech startups, where Alkassar was the Head of New Ventures at Rocket Internet Middle East, while Soliman previously was Vice President at Delivery Hero overseeing logistics operations for all DeliveryHero brands in the region.
As recorded in our flagship MENA 2022 Venture Investment Report, the F&B sector in MENA remained the most funded sector in 2021, following a $415M Mega Round closed by cloud kitchen network Kitopi. Raising only 12% more deals than the previous year, MENA-based F&B startups have been able to regain investor traction by focusing on optimization, personalization, and digital distribution. These digital solutions have been great fuel for the cloud kitchen tech startups and the food supply chain aggregators, especially with an increased global demand for enhanced online ordering. In this regard, it was F&B startups like cloud kitchen tech startup Grubtechand virtual restaurant Kitch, Egypt-based on-demand delivery startups Breadfast and elmenus, as well as Saudi-based F&B multi-platformer and point of sales solutions provider Foodics that have raised major rounds in 2021.
