• Saudi Arabia-based gig-economy marketplace platform has raised $4 million in a pre-Series A round led by STV with participation from previous backers Derayah VC and SEEDRA Venture.

• Founded in early 2019 by Mohamed T. Ibrahim, Abdulrahman AlMudaiheem, and Afnan Sherbeeni, Sabbar focuses on hiring and staffing blue-collar workers in high turnover industries such as retail, hospitality and entertainment.

• Its mission is to streamline the $11b billion temporary staffing market across Mena and Pakistan by “relieving” its clients of the administrative costs of hiring staff.

• The platform has been growing at a monthly rate of 40 per cent, fulfilling shifts for over 150 customers such as IKEA, Toys "R" Us, Domino’s Pizza, and Tamimi Markets.

• The investment will be used for Sabbar’s regional expansion plans. 

Press release:

Sabbar, a Saudi-based tech startup and a pioneer in flexible staffing in Mena, has raised a $4 million pre-series A round led by STV, with previous backers Derayah VC and SEEDRA Ventures joining the round as well. 

Hiring and staffing blue-collar workers in high turnover industries such as retail, hospitality, and entertainment is a big pain point in the region, as they often see 70% employee turnover rates. Sabbar looks to streamline this lengthy and cumbersome process, which typically includes sourcing, interviews, vetting, training, placement, shift scheduling, worker payments, and everything in-between. By doing so, the company takes on the heavy lifting of the recruitment process, relieving its customers from the significant cost and time commitments.

Founded in early 2019 by Mohamed T. Ibrahim, Abdulrahman AlMudaiheem, and Afnan Sherbeeni, Sabbar aims to “create a world where everyone can work”. The team has been disrupting flexible staffing in targeted industries by understanding the pains of their partner companies and the motivation of the workers in a hyper-localised approach. 

Ahmad Alshammari, partner at STV, highlights, “We're proud to back Mohamed, Abdul Rahman, Afnan and the Sabbar team. Sabbar is redefining the resume. By aggregating the labor pool, identifying flexible work opportunities, and removing friction from the matching process, Sabbar is unlocking greater economic value for both workers and businesses.”

By following this approach and launching a two-sided marketplace matching businesses with high-quality flexible staff, the platform has been able to achieve a monthly growth rate of 40%, fulfilling shifts for over 150 customers such as IKEA, Toys "R" Us, Domino’s Pizza, and Tamimi Markets, while ensuring high-quality workers with an on-time arrival rate of 96.8%. 

Owing to its steadfast data-driven approach, the startup scaled its operations to serve thousands of shifts. Currently, the platform is able to deploy workers to businesses within a 60-min window from the request time and maintain a fulfillment rate reliability of 98%.

As hiring blue-collar staff remains one of the toughest challenges globally, Sabbar has a mission to fuel the growth of the gig economy in the region by deploying the funds to expand its solution to capture a market of US$11bn of temporary blue-collar staffing across MENA and Pakistan. Sabbar is also expanding its scope to cover warehousing, logistics, and tourism industries. Moreover, with more than 70,000 workers on their registration waiting list, the startup is aiming to change the status quo of how people perceive blue-collar jobs and provide its workforce with opportunities to upskill, as well as get full-time perks and benefits.