MaxAB, Egypt’s leading wholesale food and grocery B2B startup has raised $40 million in Series A funding. MaxAB, founded in 2018, is a B2B e-commerce marketplace that connects food and grocery retailers to suppliers in Egypt’s. The company’s mission is to re-engineer the grocery and food market in Egypt using empowering technologies and innovative supply chains, and also reduce the hurdles faced by retailers during any business transaction with FMCG and wholesalers.
In an exclusive interview with Magnitt in 2019, MaxAB’s co-founder and CEO, Belal El-Megharbel spoke about the company’s expansion and scalability plans. This interview came shortly after completing its $6.2 million seed round. Two years later, MaxAB has raised $40 million in Series A financing to accelerate its expansion plans, bringing the total investment to around $46.2 milion since its seed round in September 2019.. This round of investment was led by RMBV with IFFC, Flourish Ventures, Crystal Stream Capital, Rise Capital, Endeavour Catalyst, Beco Capital, and 4DX Ventures participating in the round.
The new capital raised will be deployed to expand MaxAB’s physical footprint across the MENA region, following its expansion to every key city in Egypt by the end of 2021. The startup has no expansion plan into sub-Saharan Africa for now, with its focus on MENA(the Middle East and North Africa) market which is estimated to be about 200 billion per year.
Belal El-Megharbel, co-founder and CEO of MaxAB, said, “Three years ago we embarked on an ambitious mission to create a more cohesive, transparent and efficient food and grocery supply chain in Egypt. This additional capital will allow us to continue to give retailers the economies of scale our platform offers while serving many more new customers. Being backed by a diverse group of renowned and experienced investors will enable us to rapidly scale our operations across the MENA region and developing markets.”
Since its launch in 2018, the startup has witnessed exponential growth, aiding more than 55,000 merchants, staff size of around 1,600, and more than 2,000 unique products delivered and 1 million orders fulfilled. It has grown more than 5x year-on-year, fueled by its capacity to reliably fulfill deliveries within 24 hours of orders being placed.
The fund will be used to support its expansion and scalability plans which include expanding its physical footprint in the Middle East and North Africa region, acquiring talents to join its dynamic and efficient team, adding supply chain and embedded finance solutions to business models.