UAE food start-up Kitopi attracts interest from Crescent, BECO for seed round

Crescent Enterprises’ venture capital arm said on Saturday it had led a seed funding round to finance UAE food technology start-up Kitopi.

The size of the round, which also saw participation form BECO Capital, was not disclosed.

Kitopi’s platform allows its kitchens to receive orders and deliver them for restaurants and food brands.

This is claimed to reduce order processing and delivery times for small and medium restaurants looking to expand operations.

Customers include NKD Pizza, Mantoushe and Tawook Nation.

Kitopi co-founder Mohamad Ballout said the company would use the funds to scale its operations.

“Kitopi is a new concept, and we have seen widespread adoption by local and international food brands,” he said. “We have ambitious plans of expanding both regionally and globally.”

CE Ventures announced last November it would invest $150m in technology start-ups by 2020.

The company has invested $46m in start-ups and venture capital funds over the last year including in the Series Around for Indian supply chain start-up Freshtohome.com