EGYPT – Flextock, a tech-enabled logistics startup, has raised pre-seed funding of US$3.25 million to scale its logistics solution across the MENA region and reach up to 1 million merchants.
Flextock, with the help of the funding, wants to capture a large portion of MENA’s US$25 billion e-commerce logistics market. The company plans to put the funding into strengthening its presence in Egypt, technology, recruitment and regional expansion before the end of the year.
Participating investors in the round include Egyptian VC, Foundation Ventures, Y Combinator, CRE Ventures, B&Y Ventures Partners, Alter Global, Abdul Latif Jameel Technology Fund, Access Bridge Ventures and MSA Capital.
Among other investors were an undisclosed Sequoia Capital scout and investors from the Arab States’ Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. This marksthe largest pre-seed round closed by a startup in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Founded by Mohamed Mossaad and Enas Siamby in September 2020, Flextock enables seamless e-commerce deliveries for consumers and businesses. The startup is one of the ten (10) African startups to have been accepted into the Y Combinator Winter 2021 batch.
Operating a hybrid B2B and B2C model, Flextock caters to the logistics needs of individuals and companies, handling everything from warehousing to delivery and cash payments. The startup achieves this by partnering with existing logistics companies in Egypt.
Flextock offers merchants a dashboard to track orders, monitor their shipping process and last-mile delivery sales. Flextock makes its money by charging merchants a flat fee which varies with the volume of items shipped.
The eight-month-old startup says it has delivered over 300,000 monthly orders across 28 cities with a 99% fulfilment rate since it commenced operations.
Flextock is one of the 10 African startups from the recent Y Combinator winter batch and with tis funding, it has bagged an impressive pre-seed round just two months after graduation.
Flextock currently serves the Egyptian market. It leverages proprietary software to offer merchants end-to-end e-commerce fulfillment and logistics solutions on demand.
Since its launch, the company claims to have signed more than 100 merchants to its platform, with thousands of stock-keeping units (SKUs). The company also says it is growing 25% week-on-week.
“In the last two months we launched different products to help merchants grow their brands more efficiently,” Mossaad said.
“We’ve built various partnerships with different logistics services providers in the market to offer merchants an E2E experience, quadrupled the number of merchants and doubled the size of our team.”
CEO Mossaad said that having Flexport onboard not only serves as a strong vote of confidence to the company’s growth potential but will help it build a regional interconnected network of e-commerce logistics services providers by leveraging their wide network of partners around the world.
Flextock’s investment continues the series of seven-figure pre-seed rounds that have become more prevalent in the African tech scene.
No less than six startups (including Flextock) have raised US$1 million or more in this round in the past year. They include Egypt’s Zedny, Cassbana and Flick; and Nigeria’s Okra and Autochek, with the latter raising the largest pre-seed investment yet in Africa at US$3.4 million.