North Africa: Hong Kong-based VC leads funding round for e-commerce platform
ExpandCart, an e-commerce platform in the Middle East and North Africa, has secured $2.7 million in a pre-series B bridge round of financing, led by Hong-Kong based Betatron Venture Group with participation from existing investors: Sawari Ventures from Egypt, and Agility Ventures from Kuwait.
Founded in 2016, ExpandCart 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 managed to achieve over $850 million in GMV through the ExpandCart platform from its current main markets, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, and the UAE.
Amr Shawqy, co-founder and ExpandCart CEO said, “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. 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.”
Matthias Knobloch, the managing partner of Betatron Venture Group said, “We have been working with Amr and the team at ExpandCart ever since January 2019 and were part of their pre-A investment round. 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.”
Ahmed El Alfi, co-founder and chairman of Sawari Ventures added, “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. 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.”
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