Khazenly, which was launched in mid-2021, recently announced a $2.5 million seed round. Mohamed Younes, Osama Aljammali, Mohamed Montasser, and Ahmed Dewidar founded the platform.
It’s an on-demand digital warehousing and fulfillment management platform that helps merchants digitize their operations by providing an omnichannel solution.
Khazenly solves fulfillment challenges for small and medium-sized retailers who concentrate on businesses and customers, according to CEO Younes.
He claims that small merchants lack the financial resources to rent a huge warehouse and carry out activities using manual techniques.
Hence, while selling online (B2C), via retail stores (B2B), marketplaces, cross-border, or a combination of various channels, Khazenly enables merchants and social commerce retailers to digitally optimize their fulfillment operations.
Younes further mentioned how important comfort is to the company. According to him, this, together with its comprehensive client approach and data/AI-driven solution, distinguishes Khazenly from competitors like ShipBlu, Flextock, and Bosta.
The platform’s use of AI and big data, which stems from the CEO’s knowledge in the field after working at IBM and Huawei for many years, enables it to advise retailers on which products to carry based on geography and demand.
At the same time, the remainder of the executive and management team has worked for companies like DB Schenker, Uber, Amazon, and Baker Hughes and has experience in other areas of the industry.
According to the CEO, his firm utilizes an asset-light approach because it does not own any warehouses or delivery cars.
For the latter, Khazenly works with over 100 last-mile delivery firms to ensure that its merchants’ orders are delivered on time.
These businesses are paid variable monthly subscription costs based on their warehouse space allocation and order projections.
According to the CEO, following a three-week launch, the business discovered that some clients are unable to assess how much room their resupply will take up in the warehouse.
As a result, the team created a calculator in which the customer enters extremely fine scalar figures and the calculator automatically determines how much warehouse space they will take up, estimates the number of orders, and generates a subscription range.
Younes refused to provide actual data for the number of merchants on the platform or the gross merchandise value (GMV) generated, although he did say Khazenly’s GMV is in the eight figures. Similarly, the company facilitates over 16,000 self-service activities for merchants.
Arzan Venture Capital and Shorooq Partners, two regional venture capital firms, co-led the round. Camel Ventures, Averroes Ventures, and a couple of angel investors are among the participants.
According to the announcement, the Egyptian startup intends to continue developing its line of data-driven goods.
One of the company’s offerings is mobile dark stores, which enable items to be dispatched faster thanks to a more effective warehouse forecast.
Younis also said that the money will be used to quadruple the company’s facilities as part of a plan to develop more AI and data-driven solutions while also growing regionally.
Techbuild’s Take
In the initial phases of their e-commerce firms, merchants may simply handle the end-to-end operations.
However, as their businesses expand, maintaining their own processes, from warehousing and logistics to delivery and payment collection, can be challenging.
Notwithstanding a continual infusion of demand, this can hinder them from scaling properly.
There is now a necessity to delegate part of this job. E-commerce fulfillment services come in handy in this situation.
The e-commerce business in Africa has grown in recent years, thanks to the efforts of a few online retailers such as Khazenly and others.
Khazenly’s digitized fulfillment services have been employed by businesses ranging from fashion and electronics to FMCGs including XRPS by Tradeline and Mozare3.
The on-demand digital warehousing and fulfillment platform was bootstrapped to a soft launch in the middle of last year and is only now attracting institutional funding.
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