RIYADH: Qawafel, a Saudi-based B2B chocolate marketplace, aims to expand its operation to other industries and is eyeing a greater share of the market, Turki Alayyad, its co-founder and CEO, told Arab News. Speaking on the sidelines of the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Riyadh, Alayyad said the company is seeing huge year-on-year growth and aims to triple its gross merchandise value by expanding its services in the Kingdom. He told Arab News the startup served as a “bridge between supply and supplier of chocolate and retailers.” Alayyad said the company’s future expansion plans include other industries as well. “We don’t think we will expand at the moment in the region, we still have more (to cover) in the Saudi market, however, we will expand in terms of product. We are (also) aiming to digitalize the chiller and frozen industry,” Alayyad stated. Founded in 2020, Qawafel raised $3 million in seed funding in October 2020. Since then, it has been steadily growing and also supplying raw materials to suppliers. Alayyad said the company plans to offer more services including a ‘"buy now pay later" option. He said: “Qawafel is reaching more than 5,000 shops in terms of retailers, we are reaching as well to more than 188 points, by point (we mean) a village or a town or a city across the Kingdom.” Alayyad also said that they closed the year 2020 with around $1 million in gross merchandise value, the year after it increased “400 times,” and the firm is now aiming for a “quarter-million dollars” this year.