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UAE’s Yalla!Market begins accepting Crypto payments
Yalla!Market, a 15-minute grocery delivery platform in the UAE, has started accepting crypto payments for customer orders.
The UAE, which is the hub of cryptocurrency in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, has been supporting the ecosystem of cryptocurrencies for some time and this step is viewed as another measure to encourage the industry.
Yalla!Market, which raised $2.2 million in bridge round with the participation of Doha Tech Angels, Flyer One Ventures and AngelsDeck, in February this year, is currently accepting stablecoins USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT) as payments. They are also planning to start paying their staff with crypto.
The bridge round came after the closing of the first $2.3 million pre-seed round by Wamda and Dubai Angel Investors in November 2021. With the new funding, Yalla!Market financing has passed the $5 million mark in less than three months.
The Big Wave
The best way to ramp up is to keep a business future-proof and evergreen. Yalla!Market co-founder Dovbenko is getting into the next big wave by adopting cryptocurrency technology into their financial transactions as early as now or even before the others jump in.
Moreover, Yalla!Market is also contemplating on accepting crypto investments from future investors and partners.
For their crypto payments, Yalla!Market has teamed up with CoinMena, a Bahrain-based crypto trading platform in line with their move to integrate crypto payments providing their customers convenience, speed, and flexibility.
Expanding Territories
Yalla!Market has also announced future initiatives to expand their reach to Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Crypto is widely accepted in many parts of UAE, even the government has crypto-friendly policies to begin with.
In fact, many crypto trading platforms have mushroomed in the Emirati region such as Binance, FTX, and BitOasis, to name a few.
Meanwhile, Emirates Airlines has also joined the bandwagon and started adopting metaverse and NFT.
Increased Revenue
Since the first funding round, Yalla!Market has increased revenue and the number of daily orders fourfold — on average the Yalla!Market client makes 1.5 orders per week. The startup also reached 2.5x growth in app installs compared to November. The delivery area was expanded by new dark stores in Dubai Marina and DSO areas.