Store management platform Dukkantek on August 19 announced an oversubscribed $10 million pre-series A funding round.
The funding round was led by BECO with significant participation from Rocketship and Colle Capital. Other strategic investors in the round included Comma Capital, AMK Investment Office, Chaos Ventures, and Wamda Capital. The funding round follows their $5.2 million seed round in October 2021, taking their total funds raised to $15.2 million.
Dukkantek, which was founded in January 2021 by Ali Al Sayegh, Sanad Yaghi, and Shadi Joulani, has so far scaled across the MENA region with SMB retailers adopting their technology for customer services, business processes, and faster growth, the company said.
The platform currently powers the digital ecosystem for 13 million SMB retailers across the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, and is looking for more opportunities in North Africa.
Commenting on the development Dukkantek Co-founder Sanad Yaghi said: “For too long, the owners of small and medium-sized businesses have been left on the margins of the technology shift; now we are serving their unmet needs. We bring a technology platform consisting of three different value propositions that enable these merchants to compete in a digital world.”
“This includes a set of tools that enables merchants to run their businesses more effectively. Payments options ensure merchants can offer customers more choice about how to settle their bills. And an e-commerce offering which gives merchants everything they need to start selling online for the first time and to manage that operation in tandem with the brick-and-mortar business. Many merchants struggle to keep track of inventory when selling both online and in physical stores, so having one system that incorporates both parts of the business is very important,” Yaghi added.
Yaghi further said: “We have seen an increase in users accessing analytics tools on the platform which, for example, help them understand which products will sell best. Three-quarters of the businesses on the platform are now trading in this way. Also, many merchants are keen to expand the number of stores they operate, but are held back by the lack of finance available in the region which we can look to explore.”
Abdulaziz Shikh Al Sagha from BECO Capital, which led the funding round, said: “It’s very rare to come across a business and team that have been able to execute the way in which Dukkantek has done so far. Launching seven countries in 18 short months since founding is no easy feat, yet the Dukkantek team has managed to do it in such a seamless and capital efficient manner. We are very excited to partner with Sanad, Ali and the wider team as they look to build on their exciting traction and overall vision of digitising merchants.”
During the coronavirus pandemic, community retailers in the UAE without a digital presence, who were unable to accept online payments during the pandemic, were severely affected due to the drop in customer footfall. This hastened digital adoption in the MENA region, leading to an increase in online shopping, in particular.
The region's e-commerce market is expected to reach $49 billion in 2025, up almost 55 percent from 2021, a report by EZDubai, an e-commerce zone in Dubai, and Euromonitor International showed earlier this year. Further, the UAE’s e-commerce market alone is forecast to grow 60 percent to more than $8 billion by 2025 from 2021.
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