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Dubai gifting marketplace Udora raises $10m for MENA
Udora, a Dubai-based online gifting marketplace formerly known as Flowwow, raised US$10 million to expand its business across the Middle East and North Africa.
The company said it works with local merchants to fulfill all orders and has delivered more than 13 million gifts across over 50 markets, where it reported US$3.32 million in gross merchandise value.
It plans to enter Saudi Arabia in the third quarter of 2026 and add features such as personalized recommendations, subscriptions, and corporate gifting tools.
UAE online gifting demand is forecast to rise through 2029.
🔗 Source: Udora
🧠 Food for thought
Implications, context, and why it matters.
Udora’s expansion goes after a large market moving online
- Udora’s move into the Middle East and North Africa focuses on a large regional gifting business 1.
- The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) food gifting specialty retail market reached US$6.04 billion in 2024, which gives a sense of the opening 2.
- Saudi Arabia stands out in that plan. The country made up 29.63% of the MENA food gifting specialty retail market in 2024 2.
- Udora also enters as gifting shifts online. Offline sales still led the UAE market in 2023, yet the UAE online gifting market is expected to grow at a 15.9% compound annual growth rate through 2029 3, 1.
Udora’s approach fits a wider Gulf economic push
- Its marketplace depends on local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to fill orders, which fits policy goals across Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries 1.
- Regional governments, including the UAE, are pushing SME digitization to raise the digital economy’s share of gross domestic product (GDP) 1.
- Online marketplaces give fragmented local retail a path to broader reach, plus marketing and order-management tools many SMEs could not build alone 1.
- As platforms grow, independent retailers face more pressure to join one or risk losing ground as ecommerce expands.
