In a huge boost up for the Dubai’s economy that is also reeling under the might of the prevailing COVID-19 Pandemic turmoil, UAE-backed digital enabler for SMEs, has recently announced that it has garnered up a $5Million worth of investment via Series A Funding.
Headed exclusively through a London-backed fund, this investment, will exclusively be utilized for the progression of Zbooni team across all its primary territory comprising of UAE, Saudi Arabia as well as Jordan.
Since its initiation in 2017, Zbooni offers services for an extensive variety of trades, with tools including billing technology, payment enablement, digital store creation as well as client management provision.
Zbooni CEO as well as the co-founder, Ramy Assaf, stated that: “Zbooni is on a mission to help provide access to digital commerce tools, ultimately supporting our merchants to start, run and grow their business. While we wish to keep the investor undisclosed, their reputation and track record speaks for itself, they have previously invested in some of the most successful emerging market growth stories – operating a fund of well over $1billion in assets under management. “Through this aid, Zbooni will capitalize in public to develop even better merchandize for our merchants and boost the client experience with the best-in-class technology.”
The firm also stated that it has already fetched in core hires across its merchandize progress, data analytics, marketing and client success divisions, as it endures to provision a mounting number of trades across the territory.
Zbooni, which depicts to as “My Customer in Arabic”, was raised at Facebook, the global major in social media network, and is assisted by native and global firms, including Chalhoub Group, Middle East Venture Partners and B&Y Venture Capital.
The funding into Zbooni trails the news that over $1 billion was recently invested into MENA-based start-ups during the preceding year 2020, according to MAGNiTT’s 2021 Emerging Venture Markets Report. This amount was a 13 percent upsurge than that witnessed in 2019.
As of the preceding month, Zbooni stated that it ropes thousands of merchants, handling tens of millions of dirhams every month and has permitted its merchants to assist more than 150,000 final-clients.
The platform, which commenced out as a chat commerce endeavour enabling payments via WhatsApp, has spent the former 12 months differentiating its product line to offer a full suite of commercial provision and enablement tools.
Prior to this month, Assaf stated that E-commerce is anticipated to endure to progress in the UAE, even as more individuals are getting vaccinated and life returns to semi-normal. He further added that SMEs can no longer find the money for to only have a brick and mortar existence if they are to remain viable.
“The way we see it, going digital as a business is almost irreversible. Once someone is running their business online in a more efficient and organised manner, they will not move backwards,” said Assaf.
“You need to be multi-dimensional as a small business and so they will likely go omnichannel, selling both online and offline,” he added.
