Egypt’s Hitchhiker Raises $200,000 From Dubai-Based Angel Investors

Dubai-based Angel investors have injected $200,000 into Hitchhiker, an Egyptian peer-to-peer shipping startup. This marks Hitchhiker’s first investment since launch. “Since launch, we grew organically with the power of referrals and word of mouth,” Hitchchiker's CEO and Co-Founder Hussein El-Terawy tells Startup Scene. “But now we have a solid plan to spend our investment on marketing, business development and customer relation to reach more shoppers and travellers in Egypt through different channels and partnerships."

Hitchhiker is a network that connects shoppers who want to ship personal or shopping items with travellers already heading to their destination; sparing shipping fees. "Moreover, we will enhance our app with extra features to suit a world class experience,” he elaborates.  With these plans put in place, Hitchhiker is looking to use the investment to also expand its team, which is currently composed of 10 full-timers.

“We are hiring a Product Manager to plan our road map for the next two years eat Analytics for breakfast,” adds El-Terawy. Hitchhiker is also looking to expand its marketing and business development teams, as well as hire a customer relations manager, junior IOS and android developers, junior backend developer, and operations support coordinator.  

“We make money by charging shoppers $5 per transaction, we changed our business model for travellers and decided we won’t charge them so we just charge shoppers for $5 per transaction,” El-Terawy elaborates. Hitchhiker’s app has been downloaded 50,000 times since launch, with 21,000 orders along with 11,000 trips added in the app. Travellers have earned total of $290,000 for delivering items to shoppers worldwide.

El-Terawy met his co-founder and CTO Hassan Selim back in college, where they bumped into each other on several occasions during entrepreneurial events. Both gentlemen were facing the same problem of expensive shipping and custom fees; and that’s how they started Hitchhiker.

 “We solve the problem of high shipping, customs and tax fees,” says the CEO. “Also, we help travellers in decreasing the burden of high travel expenses by selling part of their bag in exchange of a reward money.”

Main Image: Left to right, Hussein El-Terawy and Hassan Selim, co-founders of Hitchhiker.

Disclaimer: The investors prefer to remain anonymous and are not the "Dubai Angel Investors" group.