Fetchr

Dubai-based courier app founded in 2012 that delivered e-commerce parcels to a customer's phone GPS location across the Middle East. It was rescued from near-collapse in 2019 and warned of insolvency in October 2021.

Industry: Last-mile delivery and logistics | Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates | Founded: 2012 | Total Funding: USD 77M

About Fetchr

Fetchr is a Dubai-based last-mile delivery company founded in 2012. Its founders were Idriss Al Rifai, Joy Ajlouny, Hassan Al Sayegh and Omar Yaghmour. The idea came from Al Rifai's earlier work at the e-commerce company MarkaVIP, where many deliveries failed because drivers could not find recipients in markets with missing or unreliable street addresses. Fetchr's service used the recipient's smartphone GPS location as the delivery address. Like a ride-hailing app, it integrated with Google Maps and matched couriers with pick-up and drop-off points, so customers did not need a formal street address. At the time of its 2017 funding announcement, coverage described operations in around 500 cities across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan. The company raised an USD 11 million Series A in June 2015, described at the time as the largest Series A in the Middle East. New Enterprise Associates (NEA) led the round, with Delta Partners, Dhabi Holdings, Triple Point Capital and Ben Narasin participating. Mobily Ventures invested an undisclosed sum about two months later. In 2017 Fetchr announced a USD 41 million Series B led by NEA, with Beco Capital, NGP Capital, Iliad Partners and Venture Souq also taking part; reports at the time put its valuation at almost USD 300 million. The company ran into difficulty from 2019. Wamda and Gulf Business reported that it raised up to USD 10 million in emergency funding in December 2019 from existing and new investors, a deal that diluted earlier shareholders, who had invested more than USD 50 million since 2012, to almost nothing. Gulf News reported a search to replace the CEO as part of a plan to avert collapse, and said co-founder Joy Ajlouny had left the previous year. In July 2020 Fetchr raised about USD 15 million from Beco Capital, Tamer Group, CMA CGM and its logistics arm CEVA Logistics, after cutting more than 1,200 jobs, according to KrASIA. In October 2021 Wamda and Gulf Business reported that Beco Capital, a lead backer, warned that the company was insolvent and could face liquidation, after Saudi tax authorities assessed it about USD 100 million in unpaid value-added tax and zakat. Fetchr disputed the assessment.

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