• Egypt-based warehousing and last-mile delivery startup Appetito has raised $2 million in pre-Series A round, led by Jedar Capital, with additional participation from Golden Palm investments, DFS Lab and a cluster of regional angel investors and family offices.
• Appetito delivers groceries in less than 60 minutes through its network of dark stores and fulfillment centres.
• The newly raised funds will go towards enhancing the startup's digital infrastructure and speeding up its expansion push.

Egypt-based warehousing and last-mile delivery startup Appetito has raised $2 million in pre-Series A round, led by Jedar Capital, with participation from Golden Palm investments, DFS Lab and a cluster of regional angel investors and family offices.

Launched in 2020, Appetito sources products directly from FMCG manufacturers, stores them in its warehouses and dark stores and then delivers them to household customers in less than 60 minutes. The startup works with brands like Procter and Gamble, Henkel, Coca-Cola, among others.

"Through our technology, we are able to cut the middlemen who take out a decent margin of sold products and provide not only a convenient experience to our customers but also an affordable one as we compete on prices because we buy in bulk and sell at retail prices,” said Shehab Mokhtar, CEO and co-founder of Appetito.

According to Mokhtar, the FMCG retail market is estimated to be worth around $60 billion, of which 80 per cent is traditional, while modern trade led by e-commerce-enabled large supermarket chains and hypermarkets account for the remaining 20 per cent. 

“The grocery market is very fragmented and there is a huge inefficiency in the supply chain itself. In order for any company to deliver its products to the consumer, they have to go through a network of wholesalers, distributors until the product reaches the retailers and then the final end-user in each chain. This inevitably results in an increase in the product prices, we look to change that,” says Mokhtar.

Appetito plans to use the funds to improve its product features and tech stack and expand its network of dark stores. It currently has seven dark stores, with plans to double that by the end of 2022. It also plans to expand internationally.