Cartona - Afrikan Heroes

Egyptian B2B Ecommerce Startup Cartona Raises $12M Series A

July 25, 2022

Mahmoud Talaat, CEO and co-founder of Cartona

Cartona, an Egyptian B2B ecommerce platform, has closed a $12 million Series A round led by Silicon Badia, a venture capital firm that invests in global technology entrepreneurs, with the active participation of the SANAD Fund for MSME, an impact investment fund dedicated to assisting entrepreneurs in the Middle East and North Africa. Arab Bank Accelerator and Sunny Side Ventures joined previous investors Global Ventures and Kepple Ventures.

“We are delighted to complete our Series A fundraise. The market context for Cartona is hugely attractive, and we are just getting started. Egypt has hundreds of thousands of mom-and-pop stores who are core to our business model. We will continue empowering them via efficient and seamless solutions in their trade and financial cycle with FMCG companies and wholesalers, aligning with our mission to help people better manage and control their businesses,” Mahmoud Talaat, CEO and co-founder of Cartona, said.

The proceeds will be utilised to accelerate Cartona’s expansion across Egypt, covering all governorates, expanding its product, technology, and services, and exploring new verticals outside of FMCG.

Why The Investors Invested

Cartona’s Egyptian market prospect is attractive. The total retail market is about $120 billion, with the Food and Beverage market around $70 billion. Egypt has over 400K shops and thousands of international and local brands, with the sector developing at an annual rate of 8%.

“We are thrilled to partner with the Cartona team to help them continue to disrupt the $120Bn Egyptian retail market through its B2B technology platform and embedded financial service offerings. The market is hungry for these type of solutions and we believe Cartona’s asset-light approach will allow them to serve as many marketplace participants as possible in a highly efficient manner,” Namek T. Zu’bi, Founding Managing Partner at Silicon Badia, said.

“We are incredibly proud of this transaction as it is the first investment of SANAD ESF II in Egypt, continuing the success of ESF I investments made in the country. By providing both financing and a software tailored to the market, Cartona’s digital platform is supporting innovative MSME retailers across Egypt, which will greatly contribute to SANAD’s mission of pursuing growth and employment creation across the region,” Dr. Daniela Beckmann, SANAD Board Chairperson added.

A Look At What The Startup Does

Cartona, which was founded in 2019, is digitising Egypt’s conventional commerce market, which includes mom-and-pop retailers, FMCG makers, wholesalers, and distributors. The startup is committed to the idea of a cashless future, investing in embedded finance, payments, and operational integration with all stakeholders. This provides merchants and suppliers with an integrated solution that increases financial inclusion and allows them to run and expand their businesses more efficiently while also reaching end-consumers with vital products at affordable costs.

Cartona’s business model is asset-light, as it does not own a single product, warehouse, or vehicle. This enables Cartona to carry out its plan of digitising Egypt’s conventional, primarily offline commerce industry by removing inefficiencies along the supply chain and providing seamless financial services to an underserved network of hundreds of thousands of merchants.

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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

Egyptian B2B Marketplace Cartona Secures $4.5n Pre-Seires A Funding

September 21, 2021

Mahmoud Abdel-Fattah, Co-founder and CTO of Cartona

Cartona, an Egypt-based B2B marketplace that connects retailers with manufacturers and distributors, has raised $4.5 million in its most recent round of funding. Global Ventures led the Pre-Series A financing, which included Kepple Africa Ventures, T5 Ventures, and a number of prominent angel investors.

“It is time to capitalize on technology beyond warehouses and trucks. Data and technology will transform traditional retail to a digitally-native one, which in return will drastically improve the supply chain efficiency,” Mahmoud Abdel-Fattah, Co-founder and CTO of Cartona said.

The Egypt-based team intends to use the funding to grow its Tech Stak, create new products, and expand geographically throughout Egypt.

Why The Investors Invested

Cartona, an Egypt-based B2B network that connects retailers with manufacturers and distributors, has raised $4.5 million in its most recent round of funding. Global Ventures led the Pre-Series A financing, which included Kepple Africa Ventures, T5 Ventures, and a number of prominent angel investors.

“We are really excited to lead this investment round in Cartona. The trade market is one of the most sophisticated, yet is characterized by multiple critical inefficiencies across the value chain. Cartona’s asset-light approach tackles those inefficiencies by optimizing the trade process in unique ways and does so with minimal capital spent. The company has already demonstrated consistently stellar growth over the past year. We are thrilled to partner with the company’s solid, highly capable, and experienced founding team on their third entrepreneurial journey,” Basil Moftah, General Partner at Global Ventures said.

A Look At What The Startup Does

Cartona, a B2B e-commerce site founded in August 2020, focuses on tackling supply-chain and operational difficulties for the fast-moving consumer goods industry (FMCG) by digitizing Egypt’s conventional, mostly offline trading market. The company provides an asset-light marketplace that allows grocery retailers to order digitally from a curated network of suppliers for their store needs.

Cartona is aimed to minimize inefficiencies along the value chain by offering real-time price comparisons and ETAs, as well as allowing FMCGs and suppliers to optimize their go-to-market operations using data and analytics. Mahmoud Talaat, the former Chief Commercial Officer of Lamar Egypt, co-founded the company and helped create and scale it to a leadership position with a 20% market share.

“Small and medium retailers deserve the opportunity to operate their businesses efficiently while delivering growth simultaneously. To do so, they need access to credit, inventory, and payment services. We are dedicated to empowering the B2B ecosystem through technology and supply chain innovation. Cartona is committed to building a strong network of digitally connected retailers that have better control over their businesses through running a seamless daily operation,” said Mahmoud who also founded Speakol.

“It is time to capitalize on technology beyond warehouses and trucks. Data and technology will transform traditional retail to a digitally-native one, which in return will drastically improve the supply chain efficiency,” Mahmoud Abdel-Fattah, Co-founder and CTO of Cartona said.

The Egypt-based team intends to use the funding to grow its Tech Stak, create new products, and expand geographically throughout Egypt.

Why The Investors Invested

“We are really excited to lead this investment round in Cartona. The trade market is one of the most sophisticated, yet is characterized by multiple critical inefficiencies across the value chain. Cartona’s asset-light approach tackles those inefficiencies by optimizing the trade process in unique ways and does so with minimal capital spent. The company has already demonstrated consistently stellar growth over the past year. We are thrilled to partner with the company’s solid, highly capable, and experienced founding team on their third entrepreneurial journey,” Basil Moftah, General Partner at Global Ventures said.

A Look At What The Startup Does

“Small and medium retailers deserve the opportunity to operate their businesses efficiently while delivering growth simultaneously. To do so, they need access to credit, inventory, and payment services. We are dedicated to empowering the B2B ecosystem through technology and supply chain innovation. Cartona is committed to building a strong network of digitally connected retailers that have better control over their businesses through running a seamless daily operation,” said Mahmoud who also founded Speakol.

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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