MENA – ExpandCart, leading e-commerce platform headquartered in Egypt, has raised US$2.7 million in a Pre-Series B bridge deal headed by Hong Kong’s Betatron Venture Group, with participation from previous investors Sawari Ventures in Egypt and Agility Ventures in Kuwait.
The new round of funding will help ExpandCart grow in current markets while focusing on R&D, technology, and new product development in order to support 1 million merchants across the Mena region in the next three years.
This will be achieved by using a variety of products, including their new conversational commerce chatbot solution ExpandBot, which allows merchants to interact with their customers faster using conversation-based commerce tools like (Messenger and WhatsApp).
“E-commerce growth has been impressive in the Middle East, and we are proud to be one of the leading players to help millions of businesses go online,” Amr Shawqy, Co-founder ExpandCart CEO, said.
“With this round, we are committed to being more customer-centric than ever, to build top-class operations, and we will continue to focus on creating the most comprehensive suite of products to help our merchants succeed.”
ExpandCart, which was founded in 2016, is one of the largest e-commerce platform builders in the MENA region, with customers from over 40 countries and a client base of 25,000 merchants who generated over US$850 million in GMV through the ExpandCart platform in its current main markets, which include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.
“We have been working with Amr and the team at ExpandCart ever since January 2019 and were part of their Pre-A investment round,” Matthias Knobloch, the Managing Partner of Betatron Venture Group, said.
“We’re incredibly excited about the prospect of the e-commerce market in the region and believe ExpandCart will be at the forefront of driving its growth.
“The Pre-B round will allow the company to further accelerate its business development and set the stage for a larger Series B in 2022.”
With predictions indicating the region’s e-commerce sector has grown at a CAGR of 35 percent over the last five years, studies show that e-commerce will accelerate even further between 2020 and 2022, at a 20 percent CAGR, and then expand at a further 14 percent every year until 2025.
“We are happy to continue supporting ExpandCart alongside a strong set of partner investors who, collectively, believe in the growth potential of ExpandCart and the e-commerce market regionally,” Ahmed El Alfi, Co-Founder & Chairman of Sawari Ventures, said.
“We are confident in ExpandCart’s ability to remain a leader in the region by offering services to merchants who have diverse and specific needs to grow their companies.”
The startup is currently preparing to launch a new financing round dedicated to new market expansion, development of a comprehensive ecosystem of commerce products and solutions that will help the company acquire new segments of merchants with business needs that go beyond a traditional online store.
Liked this article? Subscribe to Food Business Africa News, our regular email newsletters with the latest news insights from Africa and the World’s food and agro industry. SUBSCRIBE HERE
