Egyptian B2B Fashion Marketplace Gahez Raises $2 Million Pre-Seed

Egyptian ecommerce startup, Gahez, has announced a $2 million pre-seed investment led by Disruptech Ventures, with participation from Egypt Ventures, the Afropreneur fund, EFG Hermes' Tanmeyah and undisclosed angel investors.

Launched as recently as 2021 by Wael Olama and Mohamed El-Zahaby, Gahez specialises in fashion, acting as a B2B marketplace to connect retailers and manufacturers, while making the online trading cycle more efficient and effective. Using a data-driven approach, Gahez looks to cure the many obstacles present in procurement and product selection, while offering on-credit facilities to aid in the collection process, and even handles retailers' cash transactions with suppliers through third-party aggregators.

The rise of Gahez has been nothing short of remarkable, with the startup’s footprint extending across 16 governorates across the country, with 15,000 retailers, 142 manufacturers and over 4,000 SKUs on-boarded.

One key factor is that Gahez focuses on brick-and-mortar shops, online sellers and even street vendors; three retailer types play a huge part of the huge Egyptian and African market. 

“We believe that the Egyptian/African apparel market is untapped and widely fragmented, which provides Gahez with the perfect opportunity (relying on technology) to scale and position itself within the sphere,” said Olama, who also serves as CEO and comes with years of industry experience. “The market size of apparel in Egypt amounts to $24 billion rendering the market potential infinite. There’s a huge potential for growth in the African markets, and this can happen rapidly only through the digital world.”

With the new funds, the startup will reportedly look to higher ‘world-class technology’ and top talent to serve its expansion, as it looks to target more segments of the fruitful market.