Ahmed Al Zaini, a Saudi Arabian entrepreneur with a passion for app development, has also carved out a reputation as a business developer across various influential economic sectors within the Kingdom.
Al Zaini is the co-founder and CEO of Foodics, a leading cloud-based technology and payment platform for restaurants in the Middle East, headquartered in Saudi Arabia, which he helped establish in 2014.
His Entrepreneurial Beginnings
Al Zaini embarked on his entrepreneurial journey while still an electrical engineering student, leveraging his website design skills. He founded his own company where he played the roles of owner, manager, and employee until he hired an Indian programmer.
Later, he teamed up with a classmate, Musab Al Othmani, who was studying computer engineering, and together they founded Alwans, a private enterprise.
Ahmed introduced innovative technologies that revolutionized how people interact and engage with their favorite food brands. Foodics has become an end-to-end ecosystem for managing restaurant operations and financial technologies, enabling food and beverage owners and merchants to streamline their operations and efficiently track their business growth.
In a significant achievement, he successfully raised $170 million in the largest SaaS Series C funding round in the Middle East and North Africa, led by global technology investor Prosus and Sanabil Investments, an investment company owned by the Public Investment Fund focused on private growth investments at various business cycle stages.
Al Zaini’s entrepreneurial prowess has been widely recognized, earning him Forbes’ prestigious award for entrepreneurs shaping Saudi Arabia’s future and the high-impact entrepreneur title from Endeavor Global.
Having recently completed a leadership course at Harvard University, he remains highly active in the entrepreneurial community, serving as a board advisor and business mentor to several companies and an angel investor in numerous emerging tech startups.
Under his leadership, Foodics has processed over 6 billion orders through its platform, positioning it as one of the most promising SaaS companies to emerge from the MENA region.
