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The Kuwait-founded company is targeting a Saudi listing by 2029 as it expands into procurement and commerce systems, combining software with the physical business of supplying Gulf enterprises.
COFE built its name helping people order coffee. Its latest investment round is backing a broader proposition: becoming part of the systems that businesses use to buy supplies, manage inventory and sell to their customers.
The Kuwait-founded company announced on 1 September that it had closed a pre-IPO round at a $178 million valuation, with backing from Aramco’s Wa’ed Ventures, Aditum Investment Management, Masarrah Investment Company and Alyasra Foods. It is targeting a Saudi Exchange listing by 2029, according to its funding announcement.
That puts COFE’s changing business model at the centre of its next investment chapter. Alongside the consumer marketplace, the company now supplies enterprise commerce and procurement systems. The opportunity it is pursuing reaches beyond generating another customer order to handling more of the recurring work inside the business receiving it.
The distinction matters when assessing its development. A marketplace connects buyers and sellers. A provider of business systems becomes involved in the customer’s everyday operations, from stock decisions to payments. COFE’s announcements describe a company extending into both roles, with a distribution business now part of the picture.
From marketplace expansion to enterprise customers
COFE’s earlier expansion followed a recognisable consumer-platform path. It launched in 2018, entered Saudi Arabia in 2020 and widened its reach through acquisitions. As The National reported in March 2023, these included UAE marketplace Sippy Beans in 2021 and Saudi app Kaffeen in 2022.
In 2023, a $15 million Series B round backed the development of its e-commerce operations and regional and international ambitions. Wa’ed Ventures and eWTP Arabia Capital led that financing, with other investors including Al Imtiaz Investment Group, KISP Ventures and Rasameel Investment Company.
At that stage, the offer already extended beyond a prepared drink. Consumers could buy beans, capsules, machines and accessories through the marketplace. That placed COFE at several points in the coffee trade, connecting shops, suppliers and end customers through the same broader business.
The significance of that history is practical. Payments, ordering and customer accounts are necessary infrastructure for a marketplace. Once built, those capabilities can also become products that other brands use in their own operations. COFE’s subsequent moves show that possibility becoming a more explicit part of its strategy.
A different commercial relationship
A concrete example came in August 2025, when UAE tea brand FiLLi Cafe announced a partnership with COFE Cloud. The agreement centred on a customised mobile application supporting FiLLi’s international expansion, including plans across the UK and Asia.
That arrangement illustrates a different relationship from listing a café on a marketplace. FiLLi was putting COFE’s technology behind its own customer experience. The café brand remained the name customers encountered, while COFE supplied part of the system underneath it.
For a business operating across countries, the distinction matters. A branded digital channel can connect ordering with customer records and loyalty activity, while allowing the operator to adapt its offer to individual markets. In this arrangement, technology becomes part of running the brand across locations.
The partnership announcement described intended improvements in operations and customer engagement. Those aims should be distinguished from independently measured results. Its clearer significance is that an established beverage operator had selected COFE to support a branded digital service, providing a specific example of the company’s move into enterprise work.
The Alyasra merger adds a physical business
The shift also involved a change outside software. COFE says it merged with Alyasra’s beverage business in 2025, combining its technology with an established procurement and distribution operation.
That combination helps explain why procurement now sits beside commerce in the company’s offering. Supplying a hospitality business involves physical goods and equipment as well as digital orders. A system can identify a purchasing requirement, but somebody still has to source the product, deliver it and deal with the equipment that uses it.
COFE describes a model covering beverage consumables, machine placement and servicing, replenishment and financing. The merger therefore brings distribution and service work into the same commercial proposition as the software. It makes the company’s evolution more substantial than a change of name or the addition of an AI interface.
Its latest announcement puts its customer base at more than 1,000 clients across 3,000 outlets in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE. Those are company-reported figures, covering sectors including hospitality, aviation, healthcare and education as well as cafés and restaurants.
What the next investment chapter will test
COFE calls its two enterprise business lines Agentic Commerce and Agentic Procurement. Its description of the latter includes software that monitors consumption, forecasts demand and initiates purchasing activity, alongside purchase approvals, inventory records and invoice processing.
The underlying operational question is straightforward: can information about what customers buy help a business decide what it needs to purchase next? Connecting those decisions could reduce the manual work between selling an item and replacing the stock used to produce it. The outcome depends on how accurately the systems reflect the business and how well they fit its existing processes.
This is where the enterprise proposition will be tested. A café owner or hotel purchasing team needs reliable deliveries, usable records and clear control over spending. The useful measure of automation is whether those tasks become easier to manage in daily operation.
Wamda’s September report confirmed the $178 million valuation while noting that the investment amount was not disclosed. The 2029 listing remains a company target. Neither figure, by itself, establishes the commercial performance of the newer business lines.
For investors following the company, the next stage will therefore involve understanding the contribution of its different activities: the consumer marketplace, enterprise software and procurement operations. Customer counts indicate reach, but the durability of those relationships and the economics of serving them will determine how that reach translates into a larger business.
COFE’s development links a Kuwait-founded consumer brand with Gulf enterprise customers, Saudi-backed capital and an intended Saudi listing. Its investment story now turns on whether the infrastructure built around coffee can support a broader, lasting role in the businesses that buy and sell it.
