This post originally appeared on the JadoPado Blog and has been re-produced here to preserve the JadoPado historical record.

We’re incredibly excited to announce that BECO Capital has lead our first external round of investment. We’re calling it a Series A, but given the capital that al bogari Holdings has already invested, you could call it a B or a C or any other letter should you be so inclined.

A booster rocket is used to launch a spacecraft into low Earth orbit and is almost vital if you’d like to get your spaceship beyond Earth’s orbit. Once it has burnt through its fuel, the booster falls back to Earth, a point known as booster engine cut off or BECO. And that pretty much describes what BECO Capital is bringing to the table. The ability to blast us from Earth into distant reaches of space to galaxies far, far away. Or leaving the metaphors aside, allowing us to hire more incredible talent and build better products at a faster pace. We’ve also found BECO’s long time horizons to be tightly aligned with our vision to build a global e-commerce business based out of the region.

It can be a touch awkward announcing a funding round as it doesn’t really mean anything to our customers (at least, not yet), so this announcement may be more useful if:

You’re looking for somewhere to build incredible stuff
We’re continuing to hire incredible talent, including engineers, marketers, business development and support folks. If you’ve had many dreams of changing the face of commerce in emerging markets, you should apply here.

You’d like to hear some advice that you didn’t really ask for

  1. We tried really hard to follow the commonly dished out advice to raise and then get back to building the business. If only it were that easy. If you fail, try harder and then harder still. Grind away at it persistently until you make it happen.
  2. Investors hate saying “no” and tend to express significant fear of missing out (FOMO) symptoms, but don’t really want to do anything about it. If you don’t hear back in a couple of days, move on.
  3. No one wants to give you money until someone has given you money. The only solution to this is to get someone to give you some money. A classic chicken and egg sandwich situation.
  4. Play hard to get. While this is much easier said than done, if you don’t really need someone’s money, they’re more likely to want to give it to you.
  5. Bootstrapping and making do with what you’ve got sets a rock solid foundation for the road ahead. Money can’t fix a bad business model or a poorly run business.
  6. Be patient. I can’t express this enough. Be patient. And persistent.
  7. While many an investor (and even more so in the VC space) believes that you need to get there first, always remember that great things take time. Most of the world’s most valuable businesses were built over multiple decades, growth together with earnings.
  8. Markets evolve quickly and even more so in the technology space. You need to be nimble enough to swivel. Not pivot. Swivel.

And to wrap up, our spaceship is being powered by an AED 14.7 million ($4 million) round, with a post-money valuation of AED 102 million ($28 million). The close of a funding round is usually seen as a reason to celebrate and while we’ve been so inclined (?), the reality is that everything that has come before was the prelude to what comes next.

The journey is just beginning. Thank you all for your continued incredible support!

Onwards and upwards.