Growdash, a Dubai-based startup specialising in retail and e-commerce business intelligence, has successfully closed a seed funding round, securing $1.8 million. The round was led by Oryx Fund and Oraseya Capital, a MENA-focused investment fund from Hambro Perks and Oraseya Capital, the venture capital arm of Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority (DIEZ).
This capital infusion will enable Growdash to develop its platform further. The platform provides retailers with real-time analytics and insights to optimise operations and improve decision-making processes.
Growdash plans to use the funds to expand its team, enhance its technology infrastructure, and explore new markets. The startup is also focused on strengthening its product offerings to meet the evolving needs of its clients.
Founded in 2022 by Sean Trevaskis and Enver Sorkun, former employees of Talabat, the online food delivery company. Together, they have built Growdash into the region’s leading restaurant analytics and business intelligence technology, working with over 300 restaurant brands across 4000 locations in the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar.
“The involvement of esteemed global and regional investors such as Oryx, Oraseya Capital, and Hub71 highlights our significant progress. This is further reinforced by follow-on investors like TPN Investments and GCC Angels, along with new participation from industry-leading angels like AngelSpark, Mohamed Zourob, and Abdullah Mohamad. Their support boosts our confidence in the strong market potential and the high-quality product our team is developing,” stated Enver Sorkun, Chief Experience Officer (CXO).
Sorkun emphasised, “We are committed to building a best-in-class tech stack that empowers restaurants to capitalize on a substantial industry-wide ROI opportunity. Restaurants deserve technology that facilitates their digital growth strategies and investments in a data-driven, autonomous manner through a purpose-built suite, similar to what e-commerce platforms like Shopify have achieved over the past decade.”
Discussing future expansion plans, Sorkun added, “With our seed financing, we will accelerate our product roadmap, focusing on machine learning and developing new, innovative features that align with our product methodology of insight, decision, and action.”
Sean mentioned, “We will launch our technology for restaurants in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia later this year, with exciting plans to capture the first-mover opportunity in Central Eastern Europe.”
Regarding their investment in Growdash, Ali Qaiser, General Partner at Oryx Fund and Hambro Perks, stated, “We believe Growdash is revolutionizing 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 enthusiastic 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, commented, “Oraseya Capital is dedicated to fostering innovation and driving growth in the MENA region through its investments. Growdash’s cutting-edge software exemplifies the type of innovative startups we aim to support, with a bright future ahead.
He added the founders have an early-mover advantage in a rapidly growing segment, enhancing growth strategies across digital sales channels and significantly boosting ROI on growth and marketing expenditures.
“We are particularly impressed with their deep understanding of the F&B industry’s challenges, as former operators, and their ability to build a scalable, robust tech infrastructure.”
(This story has been updated to include factual corrections.)
