The middleware quietly running the delivery kitchen - one dashboard where POS, aggregators and dispatch finally speak the same language.
GRUBTECH · DUBAI, UAE
The wordmark of a 2019 startup that bet online food would stop being a side channel. Photographed as a brand plate.
Walk into the back of almost any busy restaurant and you will find the same scene: a row of tablets by the till, each one buzzing with a different delivery app, each one needing a human to re-type the order into the point-of-sale. Grubtech's entire business is deleting that row of tablets.
Grubtech is a Dubai-based software company that builds a unified operating system for food and beverage and quick-commerce businesses. Its core product, gOnline, is middleware - a layer that sits between an operator's own systems and the outside world. It pulls in orders from delivery aggregators like Talabat, Deliveroo, Careem, Uber Eats and Noon, then syncs them in real time with the restaurant's POS, ERP, inventory, kitchen displays, dispatch and loyalty tools. One feed, one screen, no re-keying.
The company was founded in 2019 by Mohamed Al Fayed, Omar Rifai and Mohamed Hamedi. Months later a pandemic turned food delivery from a convenience into a lifeline, and the thesis Grubtech had been built on - that online ordering would become the main event, not a side channel - stopped being a bet and became the market.
"Grubtech was born in 2019 with one goal: to help restaurants and food businesses thrive in a digital-first world."— Grubtech
Fragmentation is the enemy. A single outlet might sell through six delivery apps, a website, and a walk-up counter - each with its own device, its own menu, its own way of reporting numbers. Every disconnected system is a place where orders get dropped, delayed, or entered wrong.
Independent restaurants, dark and cloud kitchens, and regional and global chains - including brands such as Burger King, Subway, Texas Chicken, Nando's, Domino's and Eataly.
The platform has moved beyond food into grocery and pharmacy fulfillment - the same broken order-to-fulfillment loop, a different aisle.
Grubtech reports customers doubling sales per square meter and serving roughly 25% faster, while cutting operating expense. The lever is software, not more staff.
The result Grubtech sells is not glamour - it is fewer people re-typing orders, fewer mistakes reaching the customer, and a single source of truth for what the business is actually doing across every channel and location.
Grubtech is modular. Operators can start with order aggregation and add pieces as they scale from a single kitchen to a multi-brand chain.
Unified commerce engine that aggregates every online and delivery channel and syncs it with POS, ERP, inventory and logistics in real time.
Central hub to set up and manage locations, kitchens, stations, menus and brands from one place.
Kitchen display system that routes and sequences incoming orders automatically to speed up the line.
Native POS for dine-in, takeaway and delivery with integrated payments, offline mode and real-time menu sync.
Delivery and fleet coordination for managing drivers and last-mile logistics from the same dashboard.
Analytics and reporting dashboards surfacing real-time sales and operational performance.
The 2024 Series B was led by the venture arm of Jahez - a Saudi-listed delivery marketplace. That check is capital, channel and market-entry ticket in one.
Earlier backers include Addition and the Hambro Perks Oryx Fund. The Series B is earmarked for geographic expansion - new offices planned in Saudi Arabia, Europe and the UK.
Grubtech does not deliver food and does not run kitchens. It is the connective tissue - which is exactly the point. Competitors in the order-aggregation space include Deliverect, Otter, Urbanpiper and Flipdish, plus POS-native aggregation from players like Foodics and Toast.
| Layer | Grubtech's role | What it replaces |
|---|---|---|
| Aggregators | Single feed from 30+ delivery apps | A wall of individual tablets |
| POS / ERP | Real-time two-way sync | Manual re-keying of every order |
| Kitchen | Auto-routed display system | Printed tickets and guesswork |
| Dispatch | Fleet coordination in-dashboard | Separate logistics tools |
| Data | Unified analytics across channels | Exporting numbers from six systems |
Despite lacking a background in food, the founders brought outsider thinking - and put the customer at the center of everything.— Founding philosophy, per interviews
Mohamed Al Fayed, Omar Rifai and Mohamed Hamedi launch an all-in-one OS for restaurants and cloud kitchens.
Regional family offices and angels back the platform as online food ordering surges during the pandemic.
Raises $3.4M in March, then a $13M Series A led by Addition in December to expand into new markets.
Adds quick-commerce fulfillment tooling, extending the platform toward grocery and pharmacy.
Launches a native POS and links Foodics' 7,000+ restaurants to major aggregators.
Growth capital to open offices in Saudi Arabia, Europe and the UK, reaching ~18 markets.
CEO Mohamed Al Fayed spent 12 years in omnichannel retail at Al Tayer Group before Grubtech - launching Gap and Mamas & Papas in the GCC and building the luxury marketplace Ounass. He started his career at Macy's.
That outsider path is a recurring theme in how the company describes itself: none of the founders came from the food industry, and they treat that as an advantage. Coming from retail, they saw the operational plumbing everyone in hospitality had stopped noticing - and built a business out of fixing it. The company now runs on roughly 190 people across offices including Dubai, Riyadh and Barcelona.
CEO. Ex-Al Tayer omnichannel SVP; launched Ounass and brought Gap and Mamas & Papas to the GCC.
Co-founder of Grubtech, part of the founding team since 2019.
Co-founder of Grubtech, part of the founding team since 2019.
Longer conversations and product context from the founders and press.
It provides a unified software platform that connects a restaurant's POS, delivery aggregators, kitchen displays, dispatch and analytics into one dashboard, so online and in-store orders are managed in a single place.
It was founded in 2019 in Dubai by Mohamed Al Fayed (CEO), Omar Rifai and Mohamed Hamedi.
About $33.4M in total across seed, pre-Series A, a $13M Series A in 2021 and a $15M Series B led by Jahez's VC arm in 2024.
Restaurants, cloud/dark kitchens, chains, grocers and pharmacies across roughly 18 markets, including brands such as Burger King, Subway, Nando's and Eataly.
It doesn't deliver food. It's the middleware layer that sits between the operator's systems and the aggregators, automating order flow so staff don't re-key orders across apps.