Zid raises $7m in Series A funding led by Global Ventures

Saudi-based eCommerce enablement platform, Zid , has successfully raised $7 million (26 million SAR) in a Series A funding led by international venture capital firm, Global Ventures and alongside existing investors Elm and Arzan Venture Capital.

This is the second round of investment Zid has received since the business was founded in 2017, and follows a pre-series A investment round of $2 million in July 2019 led by ElmVC.

Sultan AlAsmi, Co-founder and CEO of Zid, said: “Zid has transformed from a single product to a company providing a rich-toolbox and variety solutions helping our customers and improving the ecommerce ecosystem. This achievement is due to the hard work and dedication of our stellar team, capable of achieving any goal.”

Zid has grown strongly in the past two years, with the pandemic accelerating growth. Milestones include a 10x growth in gross merchandise volume, and orders made via Zid’s merchants up to 3.6 million consumers. Zid’s merchant network now boasts over 5,300 stores across 14 different categories from small to large merchants in the retail sector.

Zid’s dedicated team and infrastructure handled the pandemic-driven surge on its platform seamlessly, handling the aforementioned 10x growth while maintaining 99.99 per cent up-time to it’s services.

Mazen AlDarrab, Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer, Zid added: “We enable merchants on Zid’s platform to achieve their business goals through seamlessly tracking their sales and operations and working diligently on innovative solutions for the challenges facing the sector in Saudi Arabia and the region. We look forward to expanding Zid outside Saudi Arabia, and to bring to new markets our values that deliver a meaningful impact by building and enabling effective communities.”

In Q3 2020 Zid launched Zid Ship, a shipping management solution connecting logistics providers directly with merchants, via Zid’s dashboard, to provide a seamless and more integrated experience to merchants. The platform already has more than 20 service providers providing an outstanding delivery success-rate to customers.

Noor Sweid, founder and general partner of Global Ventures, added: “We are confident Zid’s team, and its ambition, will make them one of our highest performing portfolio companies. Zid is a vital building block for the future of the industry through its innovative retail and fintech solutions, as well as gig and community development. Zid will use this round to expand into new markets, conquer new retail verticals and attract top talent, as well as digitise and automate more innovative solutions to improve the e-commerce experience for retailers, merchants and consumers.” — sandhya@khaleejtimes.com