Lawazem, an operational procurement company, has closed a seed deal totaling $1.3 million. The round was led by Merak Capital, a technology investment firm licensed by the Capital Market Authority of Saudi Arabia, with participation from Merced, a Saudi VC company that covers a variety of sectors across the Middle East.
Lawazem was founded in 2020 by Abdulhakim Albisher and Nasser Alshaya, who harnessed more than 20 years of experience in procurement, contracting, management, IT, and retail to deliver top-of-class services to medium and large organizations across the Kingdom. Such organizations include corporations, government businesses, and non-profit organizations.
Lawazem is a ‘B2B mall’ and a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all business procurement needs, ranging from VIP guest services to office stationery. With Lawazem, businesses receive a broad range of services and products to choose from, decreasing the time, effort, and costs of reactive operational procurement.
Abdulhakim Albeshir, Co-founder and CEO of Lawazem, commented:
“We at Lawazem are proud to have been able in our short time of operation to be a reliable partner to our many business clients supporting their organizations’ operational needs while focusing on increasing the efficiency of their operational procurement as the process is typically expensive and time consuming. Lawazem is a new and innovative B2B model explicitly developed for operational procurement of medium to large organizations. More than 100 organizations, private and government, are using Lawazem to fulfill their operational needs and accessing Lawazem’s extensive catalog supported by our partners and vendors.
This investment round comes at an early stage of Lawazem’s journey, and it will be pivotal for us as we move to further develop and enhance our technology as well as help in establishing the needed infrastructure to address the ever-growing demand for our products and services.”
Nasser Alshaya, Co-founder and COO of Lawazem added:
“At Lawazem, we are happy to support local companies and local content to have a wider reach to business clients. We are proud of the partnerships we made and we will continue to partner with local content providers.”
This investment from Merak Capital will enable Lawazem to steadily expand its staff, marketing initiatives, and technology capabilities. The company witnessed an average quarterly growth of 150% during 2021 and is on its way to becoming the leading platform for all operational procurement needs in Saudi Arabia and beyond.
Ahmed AlJabreen, Partner at Merak Capital commented: “The market of operational procurement is largely done manually with little to no technology infrastructure. Lawazem is poised to be the technology-enabled disruptor for this vertical. With an extensively experienced team in Abdulhakim and Nasser, an impressive growth record as well as a huge potential and market opportunity we saw in Lawazem what we look for in our portfolio companies; a great opportunity being executed by an exceptional team.”
“Merak Capital aims to partner with the builders of tomorrow in leading the region’s transformation, unlocking new markets and opportunities for growth, where technological innovation, fueled by the entrepreneurial spirit, shapes our future.” added Ahmed AlJabreen.
