Calls to boycott the Egyptian grocery delivery startup Breadfast have prompted one of its founders to publicly defend the company after criticism erupted over its latest funding round and the presence of investors with ties to Israel.
The controversy erupted after the Cairo-based company announced a $50 million pre-Series C funding round in February, drawing renewed scrutiny on social media over one of the participating investors, the Japanese venture capital firm SBI Investment, which previously co-founded the fund SBI JI Innovation together with Vertex Israel, a Tel Aviv–based venture capital firm.
Critics argued that companies operating in Arab markets should avoid financial links — even indirect ones—to Israel, particularly amid Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.
The backlash pushed Mohamed Habib, Breadfast’s co-founder and chief operating officer, to break his silence this week in a lengthy Facebook post defending the company and addressing the criticism.
“We have refused money more than once when it conflicted with our moral boundaries,” Habib wrote, revealing that Breadfast had previously rejected funding from investors directly connected to the Israeli state. Those decisions, he said, were made unanimously by the founders “in locked rooms where no one was watching.”
Founded in 2017 by Habib, Mostafa Amin, and Abdallah Nofal, Breadfast began as a subscription bread delivery service before expanding into a vertically integrated commerce platform offering groceries, pharmaceuticals, and financial services.
Private-label products now account for roughly 40% of grocery sales, a strategy the company says has helped it improve margins amid Egypt’s prolonged inflation crisis.
The $50 million funding round, led by Novastar Ventures through its People and Planet Fund III, included backing from Mubadala Investment Company, The Olayan Group, SBI Investment, Asia Africa Investment & Consulting, Y Combinator, IFC, EBRD, and 4DX Ventures.
According to disclosures by the Swedish investment firm VNV Global, which holds a 7.5% stake, Breadfast’s valuation has climbed to about $403 million.
Habib stressed that all participating investors hold minority stakes, adding that the company remains founder-led and Egyptian-controlled.
“If you want Egypt to take its place in the world economy,” he wrote, “we must accept that global capital moves in an interconnected network.”
Still, the presence of investors linked to Israel has made Breadfast a target of boycott campaigns on social media. The Emirati sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, another Breadfast investor, has previously made investments in Israel—including purchasing a stake in the Tamar gas field in 2021.
Habib argued that global venture capital funds typically operate diversified portfolios across multiple countries and sectors, funding everything from hospitals in Brazil to technology companies in India and infrastructure projects in Europe. Investment in Egypt, he said, should be understood as confidence in the Egyptian market rather than a political statement.
At the same time, he attempted to draw a line between companies indirectly linked to Israeli investors and those directly involved in Israeli state infrastructure or military activity.
“A boycott is for a company that has servers directly operating the occupation army, a company providing surveillance technology used against Palestinians, or a company with factories in settlements,” he wrote. “These companies directly contribute to the killings and displacements.”
Others in Egypt’s tech and finance sectors echoed similar arguments. Mohamed El-Shabrawy, CEO and co-founder of the consumer payments platform Sympl that led a similar funding round in 2021, told Al Manassa that international investment networks rarely align with political considerations.
“Investing in foreign or international companies does not necessarily imply political complicity,” he said. “It is part of the global ecosystem of capital and investors.”
Similarly, Ihab Rashad, deputy chairman of Mubasher Capital Holding for Financial Investments, said startups typically have little control over the broader portfolios or affiliations of venture capital funds.
A company raising capital, Rashad explained, can decide which investors join its shareholder structure but cannot influence their other investments or partnerships.
For some boycott advocates, however, the debate highlights the increasingly blurred lines between global finance and political accountability.
Abdel Aziz El-Husseini, one of the founders of the boycott movement in Egypt, told Al Manassa that cases like Breadfast may not fall within the movement’s primary targets.
“The main principle is to pressure companies to stop any direct engagement with Israel or Israeli companies,” he said.
El-Husseini added that governments bear greater responsibility than private companies when it comes to economic pressure on Israel.
“The heavier responsibility lies with Arab governments to lead an organized process to cut economic, academic, and cultural ties with Israel,” he said.
Breadfast’s name had previously circulated on pro-Palestine social media pages because of its foreign funding, some of which critics say could be connected to entities that operate in Israel.
The company has also previously received investment from the Swedish fund VNV Global, which holds a stake in Gett, a ride-hailing and delivery service operating in Israel, and also invests in two other companies based in Egypt.
Since Israel launched its military assault on Gaza in October 2023, boycott campaigns targeting Western and multinational brands have spread widely across the region. Such campaigns have had an unprecedented impact in countries where public support for Palestinians remains high, including Egypt and Jordan.
