Fawry Acquires Minority Stake in Sudanese Startup Alsoug

Egyptian fintech powerhouse, Fawry, has led a $5 million investment in Sudanese online classifieds platfrom, Alsoug, an investment that marks both Fawry’s first foreign investment and the first official venture capital investment in a Sudanese startup.

As a result of the investment, Fawry will own a minority stake in Alsoug, which in itself has drawn the eyes of international investors towards an emerging Sudanese ecosystem.

With the investment, Alsoug will launch its new fintech platform, Cashi, but Fawry played a much larger part in the funding as a de-risker, a role that eased the concerns of participating international investors.

“Having Fawry in the round was really instrumental,” co-founder and CEO, Tarneem Saeed, told Magnitt. “Sudan is a high-risk environment because it’s an unknown environment and it’s still coming out of a political transformation, but the economy is beginning to show its weight. It was crucial for investors to be comfortable with the size of the round and the ambition of the roll-out platform knowing that it had the strong backing from an operating partner that has excelled in the same venture in another country.”

For Fawry, the investment comes as part of ambitious expansion plans, as the e-payment solution provider looks to expand its network of partners through strategic investments and acquisitions, the most recent coming in the form of the minority acquisition of Egyptian social commerce startup, Brimore, in September. The move followed investments in elmenus earlier this year, as well as 2020’s investment in delivery startup, Bosta.