• Egypt-based food delivery app elmenus has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Careem.
• Founded in 2011 by Amir Allam, elmenus is a good delivery platform that allows users to discover restaurants in Egypt with the aim to personalise food recommendations.
• The partnership with elmenus is a further step for Careem in launching its super app across the region.
• elmenus secured $10 million in a pre-Series C round in July 2021 from Fawry, Marakez and Luxor Capital, a New York-based hedge fund.

Source: Bloomberg

Uber Inc.’s Careem is investing an undisclosed sum in a leading Egyptian food-delivery app, one of the biggest names yet to be lured by the sector’s growth potential in the Arab world’s most populous nation.

The partnership with elmenus, which connects customers with more than 12,000 eateries in five Egyptian cities, “will extend our reach in one of our largest ride-hailing markets,” Careem co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Mudassir Sheikha said Monday in a statement.

The Dubai-based company follows Egyptian payment firm Fawry and the former CEO of Just Eat in committing funds to elmenus, which was founded about a decade ago as an online directory before adding deliveries in 2018. It counts Delivery Hero SE’s Talabat and Jumia Technologies AG among its competitors.

The North African country of 100 million people, where everything from a slice of cake to a blood test can be sent to your door, represents a sizable and still largely untapped market for apps like elmenus. While Egypt’s food delivery market is worth an estimated $2.8 billion, 90 per cent of customers still order by phone, according to Careem’s statement.

Careem said the agreement with elmenus was a further step in launching its Super App across the region. In the United Arab Emirates, the function offers 11 services that include ride-hailing, food and grocery delivery and payments. 

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