Fetchr

Fetchr, formerly known as MENA 360, was a Dubai headquartered technology-driven logistics and courier company founded in September 2012 by Idriss Al Rifai, a French-Algerian entrepreneur, and later joined by Joy Ajlouny, a Palestinian-American e-commerce entrepreneur and founder of Bonfaire in 2014, who together pioneered the use of patented smartphone GPS location technology as a substitute for physical street addresses across emerging markets where an estimated four billion people live without formal address systems. The platform allowed individuals and e-commerce businesses to book package pickups and deliveries through a mobile app, with couriers navigating directly to the recipient's GPS-pinpointed phone location rather than a physical address, achieving an undelivery rate of just six percent compared to the industry average of 25 to 35 percent and serving all top ten regional e-commerce companies at its peak. Fetchr was the first Middle East startup to receive investment from a top Silicon Valley venture capital firm, was named the number one startup in the region by Forbes Middle East, and grew to over 6,000 employees and drivers across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, and Oman by 2018. However, following a period of rapid overexpansion and management challenges including the departure of Joy Ajlouny in early 2019, the company entered a severe liquidity crisis by December 2019, raising ten million dollars in emergency funding at near-total dilution of existing investors, replacing CEO Al Rifai with former UPS executive Hussein Wehbe, and laying off more than 1,200 employees. Fetchr raised a final fifteen million dollar Series C round in July 2020 from BECO Capital, Tamer Group, and CMA CGM Ventures as a restructuring lifeline before permanently ceasing operations, with Crunchbase and Tracxn listing the company as permanently closed. Idriss Al Rifai subsequently joined Glovo as Vice President of Strategy, Data and New Businesses.