Peekabox Raises $1.5 Million to Sell Surplus Food in the UAE

Peekabox, a UAE marketplace for surplus food, announced an oversubscribed $1.5 million seed round in May 2026, according to Wamda and MENA Startup Digest.

What Peekabox does

Customers reserve “surprise boxes” of surplus food through the app and collect them in store within a fixed window. Khaleej Times reports typical prices of around Dh15 for grocery boxes and Dh30 for most other categories, with discounts of up to 70%. The company says it launched with more than 1,000 stores signed across more than 40 brands. The company’s own site is peekabox.co.

The company and the round

Peekabox was founded in 2025 by Hasan and Omair Sarwar, and Hasan Sarwar is CEO. Wamda says the new funding supports growth in the UAE and a planned expansion across the GCC, starting with Saudi Arabia. The investors were described as regional operators and funds.

The UAE’s food-waste target

The UAE aims to halve food loss and waste by 2030, in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3. The roadmap was unveiled before COP28, Gulf News reported, and is led by the national initiative ne’ma, which also launched a baseline study to measure waste across the food chain (WAM). We did not find published results of that study.

How big is the problem?

Published figures differ. Ne’ma’s figures, as cited in trade coverage, put waste at about 38% of prepared food and about $1.6 billion a year. Peekabox cites a higher figure of more than $3.5 billion a year. The numbers depend on scope and method, so we do not state a single total.

What we could not confirm

We have not seen independent data on the number of boxes sold, the amount of food saved or the company’s revenue.