EvolutionX Backs Kitopi with $50M to Fuel Middle East Expansion

Mohammed Fathy

Last updated 30-01-2026

3 min

EvolutionX leads a $50m raise for Kitopi, marking its first GCC move.

Funding follows 'profitability' and supports expansion across UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and beyond.

Kitopi runs 200-plus locations, using its SKOS tech to improve efficiency and consistency.

EvolutionX sees the GCC as influential, backing scaled, tech-led businesses nearing IPO readiness.

The deal highlights Gulf F&B tech maturity, with more growth capital 'waiting on sidelines'.

EvolutionX has picked the Gulf for its first regional move, leading a $50 million growth capital raise for Kitopi, one of the Middle East’s best-known food and beverage tech groups. Backed by Temasek and DBS Bank, the private credit platform is making its GCC debut by supporting a company that has quietly become a fixture of daily dining across the region.

The funding is set to help Kitopi push its homegrown brands deeper into high-growth markets such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, while also speeding up franchising plans beyond the Gulf. This comes after the company hit profitability, a milestone many founders talk about but fewer reach. That timing matters, and I reckon it makes the whole deal feel spot on rather than rushed.

Rahul Shah, partner at EvolutionX, described Kitopi as the kind of scaled, tech-led business the platform was designed to back, noting that the investment marks EvolutionX’s entry into a region it sees as increasingly influential on the global innovation map. He pointed to Kitopi’s mix of scale, innovation and execution as a reason for the partnership, as the company continues to rethink how food businesses operate and engage customers.

Kitopi’s footprint tells its own story. More than 200 locations, including dine-in restaurants and delivery-only kitchens, stretch across five GCC markets, all powered by an in-house tech stack known as SKOS. The system helps the company track consumer preferences and run operations more efficiently, which sounds simple until you’ve tried managing food quality at scale… it can be a bit of a faff. Still, this tech-first approach has helped Kitopi shape how modern F&B works in the Gulf.

Mohamad Ballout, Kitopi’s CEO and co-founder, said the fresh capital positions the company to ride growing demand as it scales its loyalty app and expands through regional growth and international franchising. What started as a local play has, in his words, turned into a regional platform now eyeing global momentum.

EvolutionX, for its part, focuses on less-dilutive financing for growth-stage, technology-enabled companies, often sitting somewhere between rapid expansion and a potential IPO. Since launching in 2022, it has committed around $450 million across Asia, and the GCC is now firmly on its radar. On the flip side, debt funding is not for everyone, and I’m not a fan of founders taking it too early. In this case, though, the fit looks right.

I remember attending a small founders’ gathering linked to the Arageek community a few years back, where operators from food startups talked about how hard it was to scale without losing consistency. Watching Kitopi move from those early challenges to this kind of backing is, well… I mean, it’s definately a moment worth noting. Chuffed to bits or not, it signals how far the region’s F&B tech scene has come, and believe it or not, there’s likely more capital like this waiting on the sidelines.

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