Redseer and OC&C provide strategic advice to Talabat during $2 billion IPO

Talabat, the Middle Eastern unit of Germany’s food delivery platform Delivery Hero, has raised $2.04 billion through its initial public offering, becoming the largest public float in the Gulf this year.
Founded in 2004 by a group of young entrepreneurs in Kuwait who saw a market for online food ordering, Talabat is today the region’s leading platform with six million active customers, and more than 65,000 participating restaurants, other groceries and retail vendors. The company has operations in the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Oman, Jordan and Iraq.
Following a massively oversubscribed IPO, Talabat went public this morning on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM), trading under the ticker symbol ‘TALABAT’, raising over $2 billion in the process. The company closed the books at Dh1.60 per share, which implies a market capitalisation of Dh37.3 billion at the time of its listing.
“Today marks the start of an exciting new chapter for Talabat and the region’s wider tech sector, and we are delighted to be welcoming new shareholders to be a part of our ambitious road map for the future,” said Tomaso Rodriguez, chief executive of Talabat.
According to DFM, the UAE’s second-largest stock market after ADX, the IPO was the largest global technology IPO in 2024 to date and the largest IPO in the Gulf region this year.
Redseer and OC&C
In the run-up to its IPO milestone, Talabat received strategic guidance from two strategy consulting firms: Redseer Strategy Consultants and OC&C Strategy Consultants. The two firms have been working closely together on projects in the Middle East and Asia for over five years.
Appointed as strategy and commercial advisors, the firms delivered market and industry insights that drove Talabat’s IPO strategy and roadshows across investors. “We are honored to have partnered with Talabat, leveraging our combined expertise in growth and strategy consulting, contributing to its remarkable IPO journey,” said Redseer and OC&C in a joint release.
“As we look ahead, we are confident that our growth strategy focused on enhancing our product offering and increasing our market penetration, investing in our loyalty programmes, scaling our advertising offerings and exploring adjacent categories, will power the next phase of talabat’s success,” said Rodriguez.
IPOs in the region
Data from PwC shows that the aggregate value of IPO proceeds in the Middle East have this year already surpassed 2023’s value with double-digits. EY meanwhile said in a separate report that while global IPO markets have remained muted in 2024, the Gulf countries have managed to bucked the global trend.
Last month, Lulu Group made its debut on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), raising Dh6.32 billion from its float. Other deals this year in the UAE include ADNH Catering, a unit of Abu Dhabi National Hotels, which raised $235 million, NMDC Energy, a unit of Abu Dhabi contractor National Marine Dredging Company, raising $877 million, and Alef Education, which raised $515 million.
The second largest 2024 deal in the region, following Talabat, was that of OQEP, the exploration and production business of Oman’s state oil company, which raised $2 billion on its local stock exchange.