MICROCAPITAL BRIEF: Foodics Buys Equity Stake in POSRocket from Sanad Fund for MSME, Linking Providers of Financial, Business Technology to Restaurants in MENA

Foodics, a technology firm serving restaurants in the Middle East and North Africa, recently bought an equity stake of unspecified size in POSRocket, a point-of-sale (POS) platform supporting businesses in the food, beverage and other industries. Foodics purchased the holding from the Sanad Fund for MSME, a Luxembourg-domiciled investor in micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), which Sanad had held it through its second equity sub-fund (ESF II). Subsequent to the deal, POSRocket’s customers gain access to Foodics’s services, which help users with “managing payments, supplies and capital lending infrastructure.” The terms of the sale have not been released.

POSRocket provides cloud-based POS services, analytics, inventory management, customer relations management and call-center services. The firm’s technology reportedly has served 2,000 “merchants with an aggregate transaction value of over USD 2 billion” in Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait since launching in 2016.

Founded in 2014 in the city of Khobar, Saudi Arabia, Foodics serves approximately 12,000 restaurants in 17 countries through POS technology. As of 2019, Foodics has facilitated in-store transactions totaling USD 2 billion since inception. The firm has five offices in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE.

Sanad, which means “support” in Arabic, was founded in 2011 by the German development bank Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). The fund makes equity and debt investments in organizations that support micro-, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and households such as microfinance institutions, leasing companies, banks and firms that facilitate access to markets. Sanad invests across the Middle East and Africa with an emphasis on Egypt and Tunisia. Its investors include US-based Calvert Impact Capital; the EU; Germany’s GLS Bank; and development finance institutions of the Austrian, Dutch, German and Swiss governments. As of 2021, Sanad had an outstanding debt portfolio of USD 295 million. It is advised by Germany’s Finance in Motion, which manages assets valued at EUR 2.5 billion (USD 2.7 billion) as of 2020.

Sanad launched ESF II in 2019 as the successor to ESF I, which had invested USD 30 million in MSMEs as of that year, supporting the creation of 2,400 jobs.

By Sheen Gupta, Research Associate

Sources and Additional Resources

Sanad press release
https://sanad.lu/events-press/sanad-successfully-sells-its-equity-stake-in-posrocket-to-foodics

POSRocket homepage
https://www.posrocket.com/

Foodics homepage
https://www.foodics.com/

Foodics LinkedIn profile
https://www.linkedin.com/company/foodics/

Sanad homepage
https://sanad.lu/

Sanad ESF II press release
https://sanad.lu/latest-updates/sanad-launches-new-equity-impact-fund-in-middle-east-and-north-africa

Previous MicroCapital article on POSRocket
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-posrocket-raises-5m-to-expand-point-of-sale-payment-systems-related-technology-for-small-businesses-in-mena/

Previous MicroCapital article on Sanad
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-sanad-aavishkaar-uncovered-invest-4m-in-equity-in-sky-garden-of-kenya-to-expand-its-digital-marketplace-to-middle-east-north-africa/

Did you know that MicroCapital publishes the MicroCapital Monitor newspaper each month? Find out more at https://www.microcapital.org/products-page/.