Brimore, an Egyptian and, to some extent, African ecommerce powerhouse, has received $25 million in a Series A investment. The fresh financing round was spearheaded by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Endure Capital.
Fintech behemoth Fawry, Flourish, and Endeavor Catalyst Fund are among the other investors. Existing investors such as Algebra Ventures (which led both series), Disruptech, and Vision Ventures participated in the $800,000 seed round and $3.5 million Series A.
“We started working on Brimore with the mindset of actually manufacturing products ourselves. However, producing our products wasn’t the wisest decision at that time as it was a very asset-heavy model,” said CEO Mohamed Abdulaziz said in an interview.
“So we started scaling with listing different products. And at the same time, it was very insightful to see how the network formed on the other side. From a seller perspective, we started onboarding more and more sellers. Most of them happen to be women.”
The money will be used to “expand in Egypt by 50x within the next couple of years,” according to the company. Other monies will be used to increase the company’s logistics and operational infrastructure, double its employees, triple product catalogs, and quadruple its network of vendors and suppliers.
Why The Investors Invested
The company has achieved considerable traction three years after it was founded. Brimore boasts that their revenue has increased 400% in the last three years. On the platform, there are over 300 vendors with over 8,000 distinct SKUs from packaged meals, personal care, and household goods. In addition, the social commerce platform has created a network of 75,000 vendors in Egypt, with 74% of them being women, covering 27 cities, mostly in rural and isolated areas.
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This is the IFC’s largest direct investment in the social commerce market internationally, according to Walid Labadi, the country manager for Egypt.
Brimore’s founding team also has deep experience in the industry. Both founders saw how difficult it was for developing companies to get their products to the mass market while working in the FMCG industry. This was owing to the dominance of established brands, who had created distribution infrastructure for themselves over time.
A Look At What The Startup Does
The company was founded by Mohamed Abdulaziz and Ahmed Sheikha in 2017. Brimore is an omnichannel social commerce platform that connects both worlds through an app. As a result, small and medium-sized suppliers may be able to provide access to these emerging items to these individuals, who also work as sellers and word-of-mouth marketers. This manner, the manufacturers can focus on their promotion and marketing while the sellers start their e-commerce enterprises and earn some extra money.
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Brimore employs “its unique infrastructure–which is an ecosystem of supply, demand, logistics, and finance– and patented technology to provide market penetration chances to developing brand owners,” according to a statement.
“We are building a smart and reliable infrastructure and a full ecosystem that enable masses to do commerce. So anyone– with a shop or a stay at home mom–can do commerce business with Brimore either online or offline,” said Ahmed Sheikha, the company’s chief business and investment officer.
When vendors sign up for the site, they are presented with a variety of product photos from various manufacturers. They post these images on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Telegram, as well as generate orders and place them on the app. Brimore’s delivery process is determined by where the sellers want their products delivered: to themselves or to their end users. While many sellers prefer to have their products delivered to their homes, Brimore’s owners claim that the availability and flexibility of both alternatives set it apart from similar social commerce platforms like Taager.
Brimore earns a profit from the pricing difference between suppliers and sellers. A spin-off named Milezmore handles the company’s warehouse, last-mile, and fulfillment infrastructure; prior to last year, third-party logistics managed such activities.
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According to Abdulaziz, 24 percent of Brimore’s sellers report a’significant change’ in their lifestyle and 88 percent indicate an increase in revenue since they started using the platform.
Brimore’s aspirations to expand financial products, particularly loans, and replicate its Egyptian efforts across other African markets were also explored by Abdulaziz.
“We want to crack the concept of go to market in Africa. We know that Africa is like 54 different markets with distinct dynamics of every market,” he said. “Our vision is if we crack the concept of go-to-market through people and reaching the online and offline and the component of trust all together, towards the new age of commerce, the cross border trade will be our next thing. Anyone can produce anything can sell anywhere because we enable the hard part about market access.”
Brimore ecommerce Brimore ecommerce
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer