Qatar-Based Snoonu Raises $12 Million to Continue Building Super App

Qatar-based eCommerce startup Snoonu has raised $12 million in a Series B funding round.

“A new milestone has been achieved in our unicorn journey,” Snoonu said when announcing the funding round in a Wednesday (May 3) post on LinkedIn.

Snoonu aims to provide fast and diverse delivery services in Qatar, and it will use the new funding to continue its development, the company said in a Wednesday press release.

“This funding will allow us to accelerate our growth and the development of our product’s in-house technology, expanding our services and strengthening our marketing efforts, which will get us one step closer to building the ideal super app where all services are available at once,” Snoonu Founder and CEO Hamad Mubarak al-Hajri said in the release.

Snoonu offers online shopping and delivery from nine product categories, including restaurants, groceries and electronics, according to the company’s website.

The firm’s latest funding round comes about a year after it acquired Omani food delivery platform Akeed and said this would help it diversify and expand its operations in the region.

As PYMNTS reported in July 2022, Qatar, which is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, has become an established player in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) FinTech ecosystem.

This has been aided by several government initiatives, including the Qatar Fintech Task Force, which is a public-private sector collaboration aimed at fostering innovation; the Qatar Fintech Hub, which supports FinTechs with incubator and accelerator programs; and a regulatory sandbox.

“As we move forward, we are excited about the opportunities and challenges ahead,” Snoonu Chief Strategy and Business Officer Humza Abid Khan said in a Wednesday post on LinkedIn. “We remain committed to our mission of making people’s lives easier and more convenient, and we look forward to bringing more innovative solutions to the market.”

In other recent news around developing super apps in the region, technology and investment group e& announced April 10 that it has acquired a majority stake in the Careem super app.

With the new investment, Careem will expand the app that is now used in 10 countries across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.