How Maalexi aims to help UAE businesses in cross-border food trade

Agricultural technology company Maalexi was founded by Azam Pasha and Rohit Majhi in 2021, realising the importance of food security in the UAE. The start-up , based in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the US, is helping small food and agribusinesses based in the Emirates to buy food products from sellers around the world and supply them to the local market. Since its inception, Maalexi has helped businesses in the UAE to more than 29 million kilograms of products from more than 27 countries. The company’s main customers are manufacturers and distributors. It also caters to retailers but the numbers are small. “More focus for us is distributors, or you can say, wholesalers and manufacturers, who, in turn, have got very, very strong issues with the supply chain viability and that is where we engage with them, providing them with the ability to buy the goods,” Mr Pasha says. Mr Pasha and Mr Majhi met while working on a project related to establishing an economic zone in Dubai. Mr Majhi was working for Deloitte and Mr Pasha was with a company that advises consultancies such as McKinsey and Deloitte. Mr Pasha has a background in international trade and banking, with a focus on supply chain finance for large and midsized commodity trading entities across the Mena and South Asia regions. His experience in understanding the many aspects of global trade helped him set up Maalexi, which is comprises a Hindi word called "maal” which means money, while "ex” stands for exports and "i” for imports. “The seller is in another country and when they would like to sell their product to a buyer in the UAE, for them, the biggest risk is payment. They should get payment and that is what they are very much concerned about and that is exactly the risk we which we address for them,” says Mr Pasha. “And when the buyer is based here in the UAE and they are buying from international markets, the biggest risk for them is whether they will get the product in quality, quantity, which they have contracted, which we call as performance risk.” Maalexi aims to mitigate the performance risk by providing the products to the customers on the terms of contracts, “so that they don't have to worry about issues later on”, he says. Inspection of products is done through artificial intelligence-enabled technology to ensure high quality products are delivered to customers. The platform also offers flexible payment plans with the option to pay 25 per cent of the cost of the product initially and the remainder after 30 or 45 days depending on the credit terms offered to the customer. Customers can purchase short-life products including vegetables and fruits as well as long-life products such as pulses and grains, the company's website says. Maalexi has also tied up with global ports operator DP World to use its facilities to store products before they are delivered to customers. The company is “growing fast”, with revenue growth of 2,300 per cent in 2023 compared to 2022, Mr Pasha says. “We’ve had some initial adoption issues, which are always there when you bring in new technology, but then, slowly, with word of mouth” and new customers, Maalexi has been growing, he says. “Hundreds of SMEs [small and medium enterprises] have been already onboarded and have used the platform,” he adds. The establishment of Maalexi comes at a time when the UAE is seeking to diversify its economy away from oil and is supporting the growth of various industries, including food and agriculture and other non-oil sectors. The National Food Security Strategy 2051 aims to put the Emirates at the top of the Global Food Security Index by 2051. It sets out plans to develop a comprehensive national system based on enabling sustainable food production by using modern technology while enhancing local production. The UAE is considered one of the most important centres of global food logistics, and food products constitute a key part of its overall trade. Maalexi raised $5.8 million in total funding since its inception with the participation of investors including Global Ventures and Stride Ventures from India. It aims to raise more money as it focuses on expanding its operations and developing new technology to grow its business. “We invest a lot in the development of technologies. We have got in-house, AI and ML (machine learning) team and we are developing these technologies at an advanced level of application … which can be useful to what we are providing as a service, or, as I would say, risk mitigation ability for our small users,” says Mr Pasha. The company, which is part of the Hub71 ecosystem, aims to expand to other GCC countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar. "If you look at [the] GCC, there is a strong dependency on external markets [import of food], which means that the supply chain has to be very resilient, and we believe that digital technologies can offer that viability to create resilient supply chains and also increase the participation of SMEs, which is very much lacking here,” Mr Pasha says. The global food trade is driven by few large businesses and the participation of small businesses is less due to complexities in transacting deals and hence our focus to support them, he adds. What successful start-up do you wish you had started? I've been fascinated by Amazon. I believe that Amazon is a great story. At one point of time, in its initial days, it was thought the company was going to fail because it took so much time and capital to build it. But it is today one of the world's biggest companies and it has created a tech stack. What they have created now can be applied for any kind of product. So you can buy from oranges to shoes or watches on Amazon. If I would have got a chance, maybe I would have worked with them. What new skills have you learnt in the process of launching your start-up? Perseverance and continuously working to understand that the product is aligned with the customer's requirement is quite an important lesson. Also, it's important to understand how the dynamics of funding start-ups work. The customer looks at the business in a different way, we look at the business in a different way, while the investor looks at the business in a different way … so getting to know that all these three perceptions are aligned to deliver the cause for which we have built a business is also quite an interesting insight. If you could start all over again, what would you do differently? Maybe, we could have raised money faster and earlier. We raised funds a bit slowly because we were trying to get the right fit, get our product ready and then get the investor to buy in. Who is your role model? Elon Musk. (I admire him because of) his relentless approach in the pursuit of innovation … whatever he does, creating new things … which have delivered … which have been monetised, have created a significant difference. His products also made an impact "whether it be cars, now Twitter (renamed to X), which is a little bit different than usual stuff and what he has done with Space X and others. I think he is a great guy. Where do you see yourself 10 years from now? It should be looked at from two perspectives. One is professional, which is where we see Maalexi going. We believe that it should become a publicly-listed company in 10 years' time so that different types of investors get a chance to participate in this space. At a personal level, I would say I continue to learn and use my knowledge to help other entrepreneurs deliver value and create better start-ups. Name: Maalexi Based: Headquartered in Delaware with offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi Founders: Azam Pasha and Rohit Majhi Sector: AgriTech Total funding: $5.8 million Investors: Global Ventures, Stride Ventures and other angel investors Number of employees: 27

How Maalexi aims to help UAE businesses in cross-border food trade

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