Wa’ed, the entrepreneurship arm of Aramco, has announced a SAR 1.9 million venture capital investment in Dammam-based Qreeb, a digital B2B e-procurement and facility management platform aiming to streamline supply chain processes by connecting service providers with clients through a unified traceable communication platform.
The investment in Qreeb will enable the startup to improve its software and management solution, double the volume of vendor transactions made through its website, and expand its operations across the kingdom.
The ISO-certified startup that possesses both ISO-9001 (Quality Assurance Management) and ISO-14001 (Environmental management) certifications, was founded in 2018 by Abdulaziz Al Abdulkader, Hassan Ikram, and Abdulrahman AlOmair to address the lack of systemized workflow infrastructures that would allow a company’s management to trace and track their procurement orders with vendors.
Qreebenables buyers to access and select the services of three pre-qualified service providers for facility management, and 125 vendors for the e-procurement or supply chain needs, on its customizable platform, optimizing workflow efficiency by reducing procurement risks, operational expenses, and time wasted communicating with each vendor independently. It does sousing three solutions: a facility management solution offering ticketing and subscription services, an enterprise asset management solution to better structure work orders and asset registrations, and a procurement management solution that provides e-catalogues and quotation auto-comparisons for clients.
“Qreeb aims to develop a more accurate and collaborative facility management and procurement sector where clients can identify the exact causes behind performance shortages. We look at Wa’ed as a strong strategic investor that can help us to expand our presence and client base and modernize the deeply traditional facility management and procurement sector within the kingdom,” said Abdulrahman AlOmair, Cofounder and CEO at Qreeb.
“Qreeb showed immense promise looking at the quantified results brought about by process efficiencies and cost cutting for its users after graduating from Falak’s acceleration program. Qreeb has also received the backing of prominent groups like Tamimi Holding Group, Falak Investment Hub and now Wa’ed which validates the problem we are solving for and the need for Qreeb’s solution,” said Hassan Ikram, Cofounder and Chairman at Qreeb,and Cofounder and Chief Investment Officer at Falak Investment Hub.
By integrating its platform to the finance departments of its client companies, Qreeb is able to instantly notify vendors of any purchase orders once the departments send their approvals, as well as open the opportunity for clients to make direct purchases online.
Having an accessible database and integrable solution, the startup is also able to calculate price quotas and order quantities as accurately as possible and allow clients to request and accept videos uploaded by warehouse technicians to ensure their order requests are processed efficiently.
“Empowering startups such as Qreeb to digitize sectors that are heavily-dependent on offline operations like procurement has the potential to revolutionize the internal processes of all parties involved within each single transaction,allowing them to take previously-calculated data-driven decisions in a simplified process,” said Fahad Alidi, Managing Director at Wa’ed.
While last year’s covid-19 regulations presented numerous challenges for supply chain companies as service providers were suspended from accessing warehouses, which prevented some from resuming work contracts, Qreeb was still able to enroll clients with a high-potential transaction value to join its digital platform. The startup became the official digitization arm or platform for Al-Tamimi Holding Group, a multi-conglomerate with over 28 subsidiaries across the kingdom, which are in the process to use Qreeb’s platform to streamline over 1800 vendors directly linked to the company and its subsidiaries.
