Blink secures $2.1m to expand online ordering platform in the Middle East

Photo credit: Blink

Blink, a restaurant SaaS startup based in Saudi Arabia, has secured US$2.1 million in seed round led by 500 Global and Global Founders Capital. Orbit Startups, one of Blink’s existing investors, also joined the fundraise.

The funding injection will bankroll Blink’s expansion efforts in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council region, which also includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

Established in 2020, Blink helps restaurants widen their direct online ordering channels by offering branded platforms and mobile apps. Syed Sair Ali, the startup’s CEO, highlighted how restaurants became overly dependent on aggregators, which can take substantial cuts for every order, as the pandemic ended.

But Ali told Tech in Asia that while many restaurants resonate with these problems, Blink still found it difficult to convince some establishments to use alternative solutions.

Restaurants are used to working with aggregators, which means they “just to have to focus on product,” Ali observed. In comparison, working with Blink involves “a certain effort” from establishments, “be it managing the marketing part or [leveraging] data,” he added.

Blink navigates this by making their services accessible and feature-packed. According to the company’s website, its online restaurant ordering solutions include delivery fleet management, customer engagement, and analytics and intelligence services.

Blink’s partners have processed 4.5 million orders and logged US$500,000 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) within the past year.

The company is focusing on the Saudi and GCC regions, spending US$300 in customer acquisition costs on average and generating a monthly revenue of US$169 per customer.

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