Mr Usta secured a pre-Series A round of 2.75 million Emirati dirhams (US$750,000) this week.

Investors include regional investors Precinct Partners, Millennial Partners & Co, along with angel investors from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. They are looking to close a Series A round in 2017.

Launched in January 2014 Mr Usta is a platform that puts users in touch with service providers (known as ‘ustas’, a Turkish word for a skilled or professional person), for a fee, from dog walkers to car mechanics, in the UAE. It is available through its website and apps (iOS and Android).

Operational only in the UAE for the moment, the marketplace currently has 10,000 customers a month and over 6,000 active service providers across 300 categories. Cofounder and CEO Ibrahim Colak told Wamda that with the support of their investors and network they were “in process of launching the Arabic site and planning the strategy for KSA and other GCC countries”.

In a statement released Sunday the startup said “the financing will be used to accelerate growth, to expand the platform to key regional markets, and to hire new team members”.

They also raised just over $350,000 in August 2015.

“We have a passionate and talented team prepared to utilize this capital to continue to improve and grow our marketplace for both customers and service providers,” said Colak in the statement.