The problem
Food delivery in Saudi Arabia concentrated on Riyadh and Jeddah, leaving diners in secondary cities with thin coverage — and local restaurants there with no aggregator built for them.
How it works
Shgardi ran a standard delivery marketplace from Al Khobar: customers ordered in-app, partner restaurants cooked, and Shgardi couriers delivered. Launched in early 2020 with SAR 12M in capital under Safari for Trading and Marketing (a closed joint-stock company), it pushed into 35 cities and provinces and at one point prepared a capital increase and potential Nomu parallel-market listing with Wathig Capital as adviser in 2021.
Pain points
Patchy coverage outside the big two cities, restaurants squeezed by aggregator commissions, and a courier pool constantly poached by better-funded rivals’ incentives.
Business model
Per-order restaurant commissions plus customer delivery fees. With no subscription or grocery-scale second leg at Shgardi’s size, the take rate had to cover logistics, support and acquisition alone.
Challenges
The model never reached escape velocity. HungerStation (~50%+ share in major cities), Jahez (~30%) and Meituan-backed Keeta — which grabbed ~10% in under a year on low prices, courier incentives and AI logistics — burned prices Shgardi could not match. The 2021 Nomu-listing plan never materialised, and rising safety/identity-verification compliance costs further favoured scale players. After six years, the company announced permanent closure, citing ‘fierce competition’ and ‘price-burning policies’.
Funding
- Founding capital: SAR 12M at launch in early 2020 (company statement via entarabi).
- External rounds: unverified (MISSING). A 2021 capital-increase/Nomu plan with Wathig Capital as adviser did not materialise.
Latest — October 2025
On 26 October 2025 the company officially announced the termination of operations after six years — 7M+ orders, 3M+ customers, 35 cities — becoming the clearest casualty yet of the Kingdom’s consolidated delivery wars.