Foodics becomes Funding Souq’s largest shareholder

Foodics has made a strategic investment in Funding Souq, the Shariah-compliant crowdfunding and small-business finance platform, becoming its largest shareholder; neither company disclosed the size of the stake or investment. The point is less a conventional portfolio bet than a way to plug financing into the software Foodics already supplies to restaurants. Funding Souq can use restaurant sales and operating data from Foodics to judge whether a business can repay and offer funding suited to its cash flow, while Foodics gains access to regulated financing infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It extends Foodics’ shift from helping restaurants run day to day to helping them get capital when growth or working costs demand it.