Egypt’s B-to-B e-Commerce Startup MaxAB Scores Monumental $6.2 Million Seed Round
The investment round is one of the largest ever seed rounds raised by a Middle Eastern startup.
MaxAB, an Egyptian business-to-business (B-to-B) e-Commerce marketplace has just secured a seed funding round of $6.2 million, one of the largest ever seed rounds raised by a MENA-based startup. The investment round was co-led by Beco Capita, 4DX Ventures, and Endure Capital, with participation from 500 Startups, Outlierz Ventures and other local investors. The startup plans to inject this capital to cover and connect to 50% of Egypt’s population within the next two years prior to expanding across different markets.
Founded by Egyptian and Libyan entrepreneurs Belal ElMegharbel and Mohamed Ben Halim, the startup connects informal food and grocery retailers with suppliers via an easy-to-use mobile application and has managed a stock list of over 600 products including groceries, beverages, dairy, confectionery and non-food products using technology to bridge the gap between traditional retailers that consist of over 400,000 in Egypt and FMCGs.
“By leveraging technology, MaxAB is redefining the grocery supply chain in Egypt to fit the requirements of the micro-retailers who make up 90% of the grocery market. The metric they have recorded in such short period are impressive, and we expect to continue to see double-digit growth as they scale,” says Yousef Hammad, Managing Partner at Beco Capital.
The Cairo-based startup leverages technology in aims to simplify and enhance Egypt’s $45 billion FMCG food retail market and has since gathered 50% month-on-month growth with 9,000 active retailers on the platform so far.
“Nobody has addressed the underserved the retailers before; retailers are faced with a limited assortment of products, the hassle of dealing with multiple wholesalers and restricted access to credit facilities. At the other end of the supply chain, the FMCG’s have limited visibility on market trends, demand patterns and retailers’ business needs – leading to losing potential revenue opportunities,” says Belal ElMegharbel, CEO and co-founder of MaxAB.
Brands using MaxAB have access to on-demand business intelligence tools such as real-time monitoring that improve end-to-end supply chain control and better forecasting. Retailers in underserved areas will have access to a whole variety of products and plenty of other perks.
