Moroccan Logistics Startup Cathedis Raises $735K In Pre-Series A Funding

Cathedis, a Moroccan start-up specialising in delivery and e-logistics, announces the completion of a new financing cycle: a “pre-series A” fundraising of 5 MDH from Afrimobility, a Venture Capital from AKWA Group, and a bridge of 2.5 MDH provided by CDG Invest, for a total of 7.5 MDH (USD 735,940).

According to a press statement from Cathedis, this is the second financing for the start-up founded in 2019, with the first taking place in 2020 for a sum of 3 MDH through CDG Invest’s 212 Founders programme.

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This second round of funding represents “a new significant turning point” for the startup, which has grown by more than 300% between 2020 and 2022 and has over 700 active clients.

Moroccan Ecommerce Startup Cathedis Now Present In 108 Cities, Plans  International Expansion
Imad El Mansour Zekri, Cathedis’ founder and CEO. Credits: Cathedis

“Afrimobility was persuaded to invest in Cathedis and assist its expansion plan due to its great performance, Moroccan-made innovation, strong potential, and ambitious development strategy. Our investment in this start-up is part of our vision and philosophy of supporting new and disruptive ventures capable of tackling tomorrow’s mobility’s significant challenges,” stated Moulay Hafid Amrani, CEO of Afrimobility, in a press release.

“The renewed confidence of our investor and historical partner CDG Invest, as well as the entry of the prestigious fund Afrimobility, will enable Cathedis to consolidate its performance, develop its innovation platform, and accelerate its growth,” stated Imad El Mansour Zekri, Cathedis’ founder and CEO.

“Four years after its inception, our start-up is one of Morocco’s reference operators of delivery and e-logistics, with the deployment of technological and industrial solutions conceived and installed entirely domestically,” he said. 

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Cathedis’ operations platform is entirely digital. 

“It is more than just a platform; it is a tool for deep transformation of delivery management. Everything can be tracked. The system provides a high level of agility to manage each operation, from the production of the delivery to the return of cash, even on a daily basis, via complaint handling, and this with real-time monitoring, even near instantaneous monitoring. The goal is to provide the finest possible user experience,” the company stated

Internal teams designed and deployed the automated sorting centre, which has a capacity of 4,000 parcels per hour. To attain higher results, the startup relies on Moroccan R&D. The goal for 2024 is a flow of 3 million shipments handled each year.

Cathedis logistics Cathedis logistics

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

Moroccan Ecommerce Startup Cathedis Now Present In 108 Cities, Plans International Expansion

Cathedis, a Moroccan startup specializing in e-commerce logistics, is setting out to conquer Morocco. The startup funded by the “212 Founders” program of CDG Invest has announced that it has managed to reach 108 cities across the Moroccan Kingdom, instead of 27 it did 10 months ago.

“With the mission assigned to our team and in consultation with our investor and partner CDG Invest, via old and new fundraising, we want to end the year 2021 with a monthly average of 50,000 packages delivered and a total annual flow of 3 million packages by the end of 2022,” declared the founder and CEO of the company, Imad El Mansour Zekri, quoted in the press release.

Founder and CEO, Cathedis, Imad El Mansour Zekri
Founder and CEO, Cathedis, Imad El Mansour Zekri

Here Is What You Need To Know

  • Cathedis offers a fully digitalized logistics platform serving the specific needs of the consumer, including services such as same-day delivery, online or on-delivery payment and real-time tracking of packages and deliverers. The startup has thus become, in 3 years, one of the major players in a commercial and technological landscape that changes daily.
  • Cathedis has now set new goals for the months and years to come, with the aim of gaining the satisfaction of its ncreasingly demanding customers. 
  • The company has also indicated that it is planning strategic investments from this year, in addition to those already undertaken in 2020. 
  • This mainly concerns the digitization-automation of the process of centralization and distribution of parcels at the central hub, and this on all the cities covered. 

“The priority is maintaining a regular capacity for hourly Parcel processing in the Central Hub. Currently, the hourly target is 10,000 packages processed per hour, ”explains Mr. El Mansour Zekri.

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International Expansion

The startup also wants to spread its wings internationally, “where the explosion of e-commerce is also a strong trend, but where the associated logistics solutions are still underdeveloped”. 

“Cathedis aims to position itself among the leaders in e-logistics both in Morocco and internationally and to retain new major brands in a rapidly changing market. For this, we wish to generate growth by covering all the cities of Morocco before the end of 2020. We are also targeting the international market, particularly in the Maghreb, by duplicating the “business model” in Algeria and in sub-Saharan Africa with a presence in Senegal,” concludes the CEO of the operator.

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

Cathedis Moroccan startup