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help oneself consumers find the perfect glasses is a prosperous planetary business , spawning giants like Warby Parker in the U.S. and Lenskart in India . In the Middle East , this food market is producing its own rising power plant : Eyewa .
Eyewa , based in Dubai and Riyadh , sells a wide range of eyewear product , including prescription drug glass , sunglasses , blue light glassful , and middleman lenses , through a unmediated - to - consumer ( DTC ) e - commercialism and retail platform across five Middle East markets .
Now the troupe has raised a $ 100 million Series C stave . The round , led by orbicular growth investor General Atlantic , brings Eyewa ’s total funding to $ 130 million since its 2017 launch .
Founded byAnass Boumediene , Mehdi Oudghiri , andAbdullahAlRugaib — all former Bain & Company consultants — Eyewa initially entered the eyewear market as an e - commercialism retailer for third - party blade . However , the company soon launch its own brands after name unmet motive in the Middle East .
Between 2015 and 2017 , co - CEOs Boumediene and Oudghiri led Foodpanda ’s regional operation under Rocket Internet and Delivery Hero possession . Their experience scaling the food - delivery business — which they claim to have grown 50x in three years and take to profitability — motivated them to start their own troupe .
“ After our time with Foodpanda , we were hooked on entrepreneurship and know we wanted to start something of our own , ” share co - CEO Boumediene on a call with TechCrunch . “ We require to find the right problem to solve , so we started exploring ideas and comparing challenges we saw across different region . ”
From delivering food to selling eyeglasses
The founders brainstorm 87 approximation , and after filter options with a leaning of 15 criteria and guide a six - month evaluation , they down on the eyewear market place , a vastly unlike diligence from food deliverance .
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They discovered demand for eyewear was grow significantly , but the supply was n’t keeping up . Myopia was rising in the region ’s comparatively young universe ( onestudyshows that the preponderance of myopia and high myopia in the UAE is around 27 % ) . In addition , local eyewear companies were focus on in - entrepot sales , rarely did any e - commerce , and their brands were n’t affordable or tailored to the heap market .
With no anterior experience in the eyewear manufacture , Eyewa started by sell eyewear brands , let in Ray - Ban , Gucci , Prada , and Johnson & Johnson , online for two days .
By then , it had enough data on customer conduct , include cart additions , site hunt , and leverage blueprint , to project and launch its own in - house brands . Now Eyewa has nine proprietary brands for diverse preferences , from elder customers try functional eyewear to young vendee looking for trendy options . Currently , 96 % of Eyewa ’s revenue total from these in - home brands , which , according to the company , has been key to keep cost affordable for the mass grocery store , include smaller cities across Saudi Arabia , the UAE , Kuwait , Bahrain , and Oman .
Eyewa markets its specs , even the ethical drug ones , as manner accessories , unlike traditional retail merchant , who tend to deal customers as patient , selling expensive brands like Prada in sterile preferences .
“ We kind of rick around the way of life we attend at the eyewear experience , where fashion is the matter that customers really like about from a choice linear perspective , ” carbon monoxide gas - CEO Oudghiri said on the call . “ So that ’s what we concentrate on in the retail experience and the health care aspect , we take maintenance of it . We ’re going to give you very high - timber lens and exhaustive center tests , and we ’ll check that that you have the good wellness tone for the eyewear that you purchase . But what we require to push in the retail experience is the fashion . ”
Eyewa also keep prices grim : In the Gulf state , Eyewa ’s ingress - point eyeglasses , including lenses , are price around $ 100 , approximately 50 % less than like products uncommitted in traditional stores .
Scaling its omnichannel experience
As an e - commerce platform , Eyewa solely served client who already had prescriptions and knew the glasses they wanted . But that ’s not exactly a volume market . So it get opening retail memory in December 2020 as COVID lockdowns slowly lifted .
The move take into account it to get to a broader customer base , as most eyewear shopper still prefer in - store experience to hear on frames and complete their purchases . This also allowed Eyewa to own the full client journeying by providing eye examination , which could only go on in physical stores equipped with optometrists and examination room .
Eyewa raised a $ 21 million Series B from several investors , include Nuwa Capital and Endeavor Catalyst , in 2021 to scale this effort , and since then , it has turn to 150 stores , all wholly owned and operated — no dealership . The startup , which now employs 1,300 the great unwashed , claims to be the largest eyewear brand name in Saudi Arabia by store numeration and the fastest - grow eyewear retailer globally .
“ We ’re the quickest growing globally , but even across category in theGCC , no other retail merchant in any other upright did one store to 100 in less than four years . So we really executed super fast , ” Boumediene remarked .
Boumediene declined to disclose how much eyewear the companionship has sold since its launch but did say Eyewa is profitable and develop at over 50 % year - over - year in taxation . The company intends to add together at least 100 more stores across six countries , let in Qatar , its next grocery , in 2025 ; it will also open a output facility and fulfillment center in Riyadh next quarter , allege the administrator .
With this turn , General Atlantic joins a spring up leaning of U.S. investors deepening their bearing in the GCC by backing startup and make local squad , after receiving capital from the region ’s sovereign wealth funds .
“ It seems there is a luck of newfound globular sake in the region . We ’ve had the VC ecosystem develop in the last five years , and many investments happen in early leg , ” commented Oudghiri . “ But it ’s great to see now more establish development and private equity fund starting to wait at the part and the the like of General Atlantic coming , and hopefully many more that will follow . ”
Badwa Capital and Turmeric Capital also participate in the round .
