Capiter, an egyptian B2B e-commerce startup, has closed a US$33 million Series A investment.
The funding round was co-piloted by Quona Capital and MSA Capital, with participation by investors including Accion Venture Lab, Shorooq Partners, Savola, Derayah Ventures, and Foundation Ventures.
Speaking on Quona Capital’s investment in Capiter, Monica Brand Engel, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Quona Capital, said:
“Capiter’s embedded finance model, combined with its expertise and strong user engagement, can have a dramatic impact on the financial lives of SMEs, helping them optimize their income which helps communities to thrive.”
Launched by Ahmed Nouh and Mahmoud Nouh in July 2020, Capiter is a B2B marketplace that houses wholesalers, merchants, and FMCGs via its platform.
Merchants can order products via an e-commerce checkout and get credit on other purchases.
It seeks to solve the problems that manufacturers face in Egypt, noting that these manufacturers do not have the right supply chain infrastructure in place to reach merchants.
Capiter has made it possible through machine learning, for manufacturers to gain critical insights into the products they sell and markets they serve, the products they sell, and how they fair with the competition.
Capiter does not only enable merchants order products from wholesalers and FMCGs, it also delivers them, while also providing matching and fair pricing techniques.
Capiter has more than 12 merchant types on its platform which include supermarkets, cafes, restaurants, mom-and-pop stores, hotels, grocery shops, electronic shops, and catering companies, all with their own customized solutions.
It gets revenue from little margins on rebates for the suppliers, the products that are bought from manufacturers and sold to merchants, providing data services and market insights to FCMGs and manufacturers, and commission from the working capital provided to merchants.
Capiter combines asset-light and inventory-heavy models which enables own inventory, helping the company with high availability and better pricing and it makes it possible for it to make deliveries without owning any trucks to ensure scalability, unlike typical B2B e-commerce platforms.
Capiter has provided up to 6,000 SKUs and it has over 1,000 sellers and over 50,000 merchants and seeks to expand into new markets like agriculture and pharmaceutical provision.
It has attracted a global team and hopes to expand geographically and vertically (in terms of buyer type).
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