ShipBlu, a Cairo-based ecommerce fulfillment startup backed by Y-Combinator, has raised $2.4 million in venture funding. Nama Ventures, a MENA-focused venture capital firm, led ShipBlu’s seed round, which also included 1984 Ventures, Orange Ventures, Orange Telecom’s venture capital arm, Starling Ventures, and other VC firms and angel investors.
“Roughly 56% of the time when someone in Egypt places an order online, they don’t even have a delivery date. After you place your order and you get an email confirmation, it’s complete silence until, on a random day, you’re going to get a call from the agent who’s on their way to you asking if you are available to pick up the package. We’re changing that,” said co-founder and CEO, Ali Nasser.
The funding, according to the startup, would help it expand its service offering and coverage across Egypt.
Why The Investors Invested
It is not surprising that previous investor, Nama Ventures, would be participating in the latest round of investment. Investment into ShipBlu’s pre-seed funding round in July this year is the first in an Egyptian startup by the venture capital firm, which has been investing in pre-seed / seed stage startups in the MENA region, particularly in Saudi Arabia.
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Since its last pre-seed funding, the ShipBlu has fully launched its product. It also signed on more than 40 merchants in its first month, and has since doubled its clientele while tripling revenues, according to Nasser, who did not provide specific figures.
“We are super proud to have ShipBlu be our first investment in Egypt”, said Mohammed Alzubi, Managing Partner of Nama Ventures, during ShipBlu’s pre-seed round. “We have really enjoyed getting to know the founders and seeing their passion to disrupt the e-commerce shipping experience. The team is unparalleled to address this opportunity. We are witnessing first-hand what a well-rounded team with complementary skillsets can do in a very short time. Riding with Ali, Ahmed and Abdelrahman on the ShipBlu spaceship has already been exciting, but we can’t wait to see what the future holds together.”
Presence in Egypt through investment in ShipBlu is, however, not Nama Ventures’ first investment in an African startup as the venture capital firm had previously invested in Termii, a Nigerian communications platform-as-a-service startup. Investment in Termii was for the startup’s recent $1.4m seed funding round.
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A Look At What The Startup Does
Ali Nasser, Abdelrahman Hosny, and Ahmed El Kawass founded ShipBlu in October 2020. Ali, the CEO, has a background in investment banking, having previously worked at Citi in New York City. He returned to Egypt in 2018 and became acutely aware of the region’s last-mile delivery issues. Ahmed, the COO, has worked in supply chain and advertising before, at Nestle and Reckitt Benckiser, and most recently at 77 Media in Saudi Arabia, where he led the communications department.
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Abdelrahman has a background in computer science and is presently doing his PhD at Brown University in the United States, where he is researching the applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning in combinatorial optimisation. In 2020, the three entrepreneurs joined forces and launched ShipBlu, with the goal of redefining the shipping experience in Egypt for thousands of merchants and millions of daily online shoppers.
ShipBlu is designed to provide a one-of-a-kind e-commerce shipping experience. ShipBlu uses its fleets to deliver packages on time, every time, guaranteed, thanks to its own artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Customers may choose their chosen three-hour delivery window and track couriers in real time as they approach their destinations using ShipBlu, ensuring complete shipping transparency. ShipBlu also offers e-commerce fulfillment services, based on its last-mile technology, with fulfillment centers planned around Egypt.
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Integrating fulfillment services with its last-mile operations gives merchants and customers a unique and seamless experience.
In Egypt, ShipBlu competes with companies like Flextock and Bosta. After completing its seed financing, the company now has a mutual investor in Flexport, the billion-dollar freight and logistics company that YC financed in 2014. This year, the unicorn also invested in Sendbox, a Nigerian e-commerce fulfillment business.
ShipBlu ecommerce seed ShipBlu ecommerce seed
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 write