WaystoCap - Afrikan Heroes

Four Years After, Morocco’s WaystoCap Has Been Acquired By Egyptian Ecommerce Startup MaxAB

August 25, 2021

Niama El Bassunie, CEO and Founder of WaystoCap

MaxAB, Egypt’s largest B2B e-commerce platform serving food and grocery retailers, has just acquired WaystoCap, the B2B e-commerce and distribution platform. The latter is based in Morocco and links retailers to suppliers across Africa.

“Morocco is an exciting and growing market. Today, the tech ecosystem in Africa and the Middle East offers entrepreneurs the opportunity to create new solutions to address some of the major daily challenges facing the region, building on the tremendous support of governments and investors. We are excited to play a pivotal role in this talented new team created and led by experienced and innovative entrepreneurs to become a regional leader in the food and grocery market. We look forward to continuing our close collaboration with MaxAB and taking the company to its next phase, ”notes Niama El Bassunie, CEO and Founder of WaystoCap.

The acquisition will allow MaxAB to accelerate its expansion in the Maghreb market thanks to WaystoCap’s expertise in the region. MaxAB also secured an additional $15 million fund from its investors, closing its Series A with total capital of over $60 million.

WaystoCap was founded in 2017 and was the first Moroccan startup to join Y Combinator, a startup accelerator based in San Francisco. It has since grown into one of the largest and most important B2B platforms in Morocco with a network of 8,000 retailers. WaysToCap then carried out an expansion in West Africa.

For its part, launched in 2018, MaxAB serves a network of traditional retailers across Egypt. Its digital transformation model of the Supply Chain based on the company’s internal technology allows it to offer retailers the simplicity of dealing with a single supplier, along with transparent pricing, on-demand delivery and a range of services. value-added.

Retailers and suppliers served by both companies will benefit from MaxAB’s technology, extensive end-to-end supply chain solutions, business intelligence tools, and the knowledge and expertise of WaystoCap. The acquisition of WaysToCap by MaxAB will now enable more than 70,000 retailers to be supplied with food and groceries in multiple markets.

“We are about to take the food industry in North Africa to another level. The creation of this new team is very exciting, combining many specialists, technological know-how, infrastructure on the ground, strengthened supply chains, as well as WaystoCap’s considerable experience in the region. We have had an excellent and long-standing working relationship with the latter and share a common vision of reengineering the traditional food and grocery market to better serve traditional retailers ”, underlines Belal El-Megharbel, co-founder and CEO of MaxAB.

WaystoCap acquired WaystoCap acquired

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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

Moroccan Startup Launches Local Market Model, Hopeful of Growth

May 30, 2021

One of Morocco’s emerging B2B e-commerce startup WaystoCap says it has seen strong growth uptake since launching cross-border marketplace to focusing more locally instead. WaystoCap which is a Y Combinator graduate has seen enormous potential through a platform that allows African businesses to buy and sell products, helping them to discover products, verify them, obtain financing and insurance, manage their shipments, and ensure payments security.

WaystoCap CEO Niama El Bassunie, said that “After graduating from Y Combinator in 2017 at WaystoCap we were focused on an African cross-border marketplace. In 2020 we pivoted our model, moving from a focus on cross-border to local marketplaces in Morocco, Ivory Coast, and Togo focused on retailers,”

“The reason for the pivot was as a result of much iteration where we came to the conclusion that the pure cross-border marketplace that we launched in 2017 was not best for servicing the small and medium sized business needs in Africa, and was rather just working through more middlemen.”

WaystoCap realised that the best way to enable these businesses and help them with their growth was by focusing on the tools that would allow them to do so through an online marketplace connecting them with brands, manufacturers and suppliers, and resolving their daily procurement needs.

The new platform includes an online marketplace with access to thousands of products, a digital inventory management solution, access to working capital leveraging historical data, and solutions for resolving daily procurement hassles and associated logistics. Once WaystoCap started piloting the model, it caught on quickly.

“In less than a year it’s grown significantly into a network of over 10,000 retailers with thousands of products available through one mobile application,” El Bassunie said. “Our marketplace has been a game changer for them as we turn these traditional retailers into modern superstores.”

It is also extending the reach of sellers into new markets, which allowed WaystoCap to grow by a multiple of 30 in 2020. This rapid growth is continuing in 2021.

“Just as B2C was digitised in the last two decades, now we are bringing technology to an archaic and disorganised industry, working with millions of retailers all over the continent to leapfrog the way things are done today, and bring the clarity and empowerment technology can offer,” said El Bassunie.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry