Grinta, a fintech-enabled B2B tech platform that digitises the pharmaceutical supply chain, is based in Cairo and acquired $8 million in seed funding from Raed Ventures and Nclude. Endeavor Catalyst and 500 Global, both based in Silicon Valley, are additional investors, bringing the company’s total funding to date to $9.5 million. The money will go toward scaling Grinta’s full-stack tech platform, growing the team, and fostering faster market expansion in Egypt.
“We are very excited to have the right investor base as our backers that share the same values and vision of making Pharma accessible and affordable across Africa. As we plan to expand our footprint in the main Pharma hubs on the continent, we will also enable Egyptian and regional Pharma manufacturers to further penetrate the $50 billion African market. Since inception in 2021, Grinta has acquired two companies, PH Store, a similar digital platform in northern Egypt, and EME, a software development company with a solid tech team. As a result, the company has expanded aggressively across seven governorates in Egypt, with over 14,000 registered pharmacies on its platform, 20,000+ SKUs and has delivered more than 100,000 orders over the last year,” Mohamed Azab, co-founder and CEO of Grinta said.
Why The Investors Invested
The founders of Grinta have created and scaled multiple healthcare businesses successfully over the past 12 years in Africa. They are prominent members of the local entrepreneurial community. The founders have hired about 300 people and attracted impact-driven top talent from different industries.
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“Grinta is an exceptional team of serial healthcare entrepreneurs on a mission to improve access to and affordability of medicines in Egypt and Africa,” commented Wael Nafee, Partner at Raed Ventures. “By empowering pharmacies to be more efficient at running their business, fixing a broken supply chain end-to-end, and partnering with all stakeholders in the value chain they will realise this vision. We’re proud to be doubling down on Grinta for this funding round as they expand across Africa”
“We’re excited to partner with Grinta to help enable their vision of delivering customer-centric, data-driven, and fintech-enabled solutions to modernise the pharmaceutical supply chain in Egypt and beyond.” Said Eslam Darwish, Founding General Partner at Nclude. “We look forward to supporting the Grinta team on their journey to build a digital and cashless bridge between underserved individual pharmacy owners and all stakeholders across the pharma value chain.”
“Grinta represents our 10th investment in Egypt, making Endeavor Catalyst proudly one of the most active international investors in the country. But more than attracting attention and capital to the region, Mohamed Azab’s latest achievement advances the entire healthcare industry” said Endeavor Catalyst Managing Partner Allen Taylor. “ As an Endeavor Entrepreneur and Board Member, we have witnessed how Azab’s multiplier effect has impacted the local ecosystem. Our recent mapping showed that he alone has already inspired, invested, and mentored more than 100 local businesses in the Middle East, and this is only the beginning. We are huge fans of Azab and his team, knowing they can lead the next frontier of innovation in Egypt.”
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A Look At What The Startup Does
Grinta, a controlled marketplace founded in 2021 by Mohamed Azab, Yosra Badr, Ali Youssef, and Hamza Mohamed, modernises the pharmaceutical supply chain by empowering independent pharmacies. In addition to providing fulfilment, demand planning, and inventory finance, the end-to-end platform offers a seamless and user-friendly experience and gives access to the full range of traceable pharmaceutical and medical items from various vendors. To create a data-driven, dependable, and effective pharmaceutical supply chain, the organisation is collaborating with all stakeholders along the value chain, including producers, distributors, wholesalers, and pharmacies.
With 60,000 fragmented retail pharmacies that have not yet been digitalized, strong local producers, three sizable distributors, and more than 3,000 wholesalers, Egypt has the largest pharmaceuticals market in Africa, with a size over $6 billion.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh