The problem
Before Talabat, a Kuwaiti family ordered dinner by phone from the three restaurants whose numbers were stuck on the fridge. Restaurants had no websites, diners had no menus to browse, and nobody knew when the food would arrive.
How it works
Founded in Kuwait in 2004 after Kuwaiti students in Cairo saw Egypt’s Otlob model, Talabat built one of the region’s first online food-ordering marketplaces. Customers browse thousands of restaurants, pay in-app, and track couriers to the door. Under Delivery Hero it expanded into groceries and q-commerce, cloud kitchens, and autonomous-delivery pilots across eight MENA countries, reporting $98M in third-quarter 2024 profit on $1.92B of gross transactions.
Pain points
Paper menus, busy phone lines, cash-only payments, and zero visibility for small restaurants beyond foot traffic.
Business model
Per-order commissions and delivery fees from restaurant and retail partners, plus advertising placements and customer subscription perks.
Challenges
Every market has a well-funded rival; courier pay and working conditions draw recurring scrutiny; and as a separately listed company majority-owned by Delivery Hero, it must keep growing gross transactions to satisfy public-market expectations.
Funding
- Raised: no public venture rounds on record; Rocket Internet acquired 100% in February 2015 and contributed the company to Delivery Hero the following month to lift its stake to circa 39% (TechCrunch).
- In December 2024 Delivery Hero listed a 20% stake on the Dubai Financial Market at AED 1.60 per share, raising about $2B in the largest global technology IPO of 2024 (AGBI).
Latest — December 2024
On 29 November 2024 the IPO was priced at the top of its range, enabling a roughly $2B raise; trading on the Dubai Financial Market began on 10 December 2024, with a minimum dividend of about AED 367M planned for April 2025.