Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi startup Saee announced the completion of a SAR 9 million ($2.4 million) Series A round of funding to fuel local expansion.

The round was led by the Saudi Business Incubators and Accelerators Company (BIAC), TasHeel Holding, and ABN Ventures, Abunayyan Holding’s investment arm, according to a company statement.

It is worth noting that BIAC is a subsidiary of the Saudi Technology Development and Investment Company (TAQNIA), owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), while Saee is a Jeddah-based startup that provides last-mile delivery through freelancers with more than 1,000 active drivers on its platform.

Commenting on the accomplishment, Saee CEO Eihab Nassier said that “the new funding will enable the introduction of new services such as 45-minute express delivery and enable the company to expand its reach across the Kingdom's urban and rural areas.

“The potential growth in the Kingdom's e-commerce sector is tremendous, but it is likely to create a huge operational challenge for last-mile delivery companies. Saee’s elastic and scalable model will be able to reliably absorb the challenges ahead,” Nassier added.

Meanwhile, Nawaf Al Sahhaf, BIAC CEO said: “Saee is disrupting the last-mile delivery using their light asset model enabling higher efficiency. We at BIAC are always looking to lead the investment rounds to in disruptive homegrown technologies, and we aim to enable entrepreneurs to build and scale their companies, create more jobs in the market and contribute to GDP growth.”

Saee, founded in 2016, was previously known as Kasper Cab. Now, the company delivers more than 5,000 shipments a day from 10 different dispatch centres across Saudi Arabia.