Zid’s ambitions to emerge a dominant e-commerce player in the Middle East got a big boost recently after receiving $2 million USD in investment during the company’s latest funding round.
The Saudi-based startup confirmed earlier in the week that the round was led by Elm VC with contributions coming from a number of global and regional VC firms, as well as angel investors.
Investors’ growing interest in the company makes perfect sense considering Zid is on fire currently with order volume witnessing a 500% year-on-year growth. Net sales are estimated to be somewhere around $37 million.
Zid says the newly raised funds will help it on two strategic fronts — to attract new segments in the retail industry and to expand the company’s footprints in other markets across the region.
Co-founded by serial entrepreneur Mazen AlDarrab and his partner Sultan AlAsmi, Zid was officially launched as an e-commerce-in-a-box solution in 2017. The community at the heart of the platform is dedicated to helping brick-and-mortar retailers and first-time sellers to set up an online presence for their businesses.
Besides handling basic technical aspects including hosting and payment processing, the 20+ ecosystem partners contribute to the cause by extending their services under a plug-and-play model. Additionally, there is also a Zid Academy that helps vendors improve their market reach and bottom lines by providing high-quality educational content.
“Thanks to all of our customers who believed in us since the beginning, this investment came to support the growth that we’ve been keen on achieving. We are witnessing daily growth in the e-commerce industry, not only in Saudi but in the region. We started Zid with a very simple mission: to enable retailers to capture the opportunity in e-commerce and provide them the whole experience in a box,” Mazen AlDarrab, Zid’s founder said on the occasion.