The archive · Commerce & Marketplaces · Strategic decision · 2018–2026
COFE App's Gulf coffee-marketplace bet: a $178M pre-IPO pivot into AI procurement SaaS
Kuwait's coffee-ordering app, a top-10 download in Saudi Arabia, rebranded as AI procurement SaaS and raised at a $178M valuation in 2026.
COFE (COFE Tech, formerly COFE App)
What the business is
Started as a consumer coffee marketplace (order drinks, beans, capsules and machines from shops in one app); now also sells COFE Tech, an AI procurement and commerce platform aimed at food-and-beverage businesses.
Starting capital：Al Imtiaz invested $10M in an earlier round and another $1M in the 2023 raise; Wa'ed Ventures and eWTP Arabia Capital led a $15M round in 2023; the 2026 pre-IPO amount was undisclosed at a $178M valuation.
How it started
Ali Al Ebrahim launched COFE in Kuwait in 2018 as a coffee-only marketplace: users order drinks from shops hosted on the platform and buy capsules, beans, machines and accessories from the same app. The bet was that the Gulf's coffee culture would consolidate onto one digital destination. COFE entered Saudi Arabia, the region's biggest economy, in 2020, and in 2021 Saudi Arabia's CITC listed it among the top-10 most downloaded food delivery and restaurant apps in the Kingdom.
What happened
COFE kept consolidating: it acquired UAE-based coffee marketplace Sippy Beans in 2021 and Saudi app Kaffeen in 2022, and in March 2023 raised $15M from Aramco's Wa'ed Ventures and eWTP Arabia Capital to strengthen e-commerce and expand. Founder Al Ebrahim framed the ambition as creating "a fertile breeding ground for the growth of the entire coffee ecosystem." By 2026 the company had rebranded as COFE Tech and, per its own announcement, evolved from the consumer app into an enterprise AI and B2B SaaS platform: Agentic Procurement (AI agents forecasting demand, automating purchase orders, approvals, inventory, e-invoicing, logistics, vendors and embedded finance), a COFE Pay BNPL product, and an Agentic Commerce platform, claiming more than 1,000 enterprise customers across 3,000 outlets in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE.
How it ended up
At LEAP 2026 in Riyadh, COFE Tech closed a pre-IPO round at a $178M valuation backed by Wa'ed Ventures, Aditum Investment Management, Masarrah Investment Company and Alyasra Foods, and said it targets a listing on one of Saudi Arabia's capital markets by 2029.
Background
COFE began in 2018 in Kuwait with a narrow wedge: a marketplace for coffee only. Rather than fighting general food-delivery giants, founder Ali Al Ebrahim bet that Gulf coffee culture would consolidate onto one app where users could order from any shop and buy beans, capsules and machines too. The bet produced real consumer traction: after entering Saudi Arabia in 2020, COFE was ranked by the country's CITC among the top-10 most downloaded food delivery and restaurant apps of 2021.
The company used that position to consolidate the category, buying UAE marketplace Sippy Beans in 2021 and Saudi app Kaffeen in 2022, and raising $15M in March 2023 from Aramco's Wa'ed Ventures and eWTP Arabia Capital. Its stated ambition was to become the digital layer of the region's coffee ecosystem rather than just another delivery app.
The bigger strategic bet came in 2026. Rebranded as COFE Tech, the company announced it had evolved from the consumer marketplace into an enterprise AI and B2B SaaS provider: agentic procurement agents that forecast demand and automate purchase orders, inventory, invoicing and logistics, plus COFE Pay and an AI commerce platform for merchants. The company says it serves more than 1,000 enterprise customers across 3,000 outlets in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE.
At LEAP 2026 in Riyadh, COFE Tech closed a pre-IPO round at a $178M valuation with Aramco's Wa'ed Ventures, Aditum, Masarrah and Alyasra Foods participating, and announced a target of listing on a Saudi capital market by 2029. The pivot story — from consumer app to enterprise AI platform — is what the new valuation is paying for, though the platform's scale figures come from the company's own announcement.
What has to be true
- A coffee-only marketplace could win a high-frequency vertical in the Gulf without outspending general food-delivery platforms, and Saudi Arabia's coffee culture gave it a large home market.
- Acquiring Sippy Beans and Kaffeen consolidated category share and gave COFE the operating footprint to claim real consumer rankings.
- Running a marketplace generated order, inventory and supplier data — the raw material COFE Tech now sells back to businesses as AI procurement infrastructure.
- The 2026 valuation rides on an unproven enterprise pivot and company-reported customer counts, so the risk sits in whether food-and-beverage operators actually buy the agentic platform.
What can be applied
A consumer hit in one vertical is distribution, not a durable model — COFE is betting the harder B2B sale on the data its marketplace accumulated.
Aftermath
As of 2026-09-02, COFE Tech is scaling toward an IPO. At LEAP 2026 in Riyadh it closed a pre-IPO round at a $178M valuation backed by Aramco's Wa'ed Ventures, Aditum, Masarrah and Alyasra Foods (amount undisclosed). The funds support expansion across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and wider MENA, with a target of listing on a Saudi capital market by 2029. Its consumer coffee marketplace still runs alongside COFE Tech, which says AI agents manage procurement, sales and inventory for 1,000+ customers across 3,000 outlets.
Sources
- Coffee marketplace Cofe raises $15m to fuel growth
- COFE Technologies secures pre-IPO funding at $178mn valuation
- COFE Tech Secures Pre-IPO Investment At $178 Million Valuation
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