After 4 years working primarily as a logistics market, Egypt’s Voo has rebranded to SideUp and reworked its technique to supply an entire spectrum of e-commerce assist providers, together with fee gateways, API integration for delivery, warehousing, success, and advisory.
The startup has additionally expanded to Saudi Arabia, the place it is going to be headquartered henceforth, after elevating $1.2 million seed funding. This newest spherical had the participation of Launch Africa VC, 500 Global, Riyadh Angels, Alex Angels, Al Tuwaijri Fund and Saudi angel investor Faisal AlAbdulsalam.
SideUp founder and CEO Waleed Rashed instructed TechCrunch he was impressed to hyperlink small retailers to e-commerce assist, after realizing they had been ignored by giant service suppliers.
“There is a lot of talk about how e-commerce is scaling, but still, we are not empowering enough of those (micro, small and medium enterprises) that are selling online. Merchants need many services and a complete ecosystem to be successful,” stated Rashed.
“This is why I decided to empower small and medium businesses; SideUp is for the merchants in the village, or those selling products over Instagram, Facebook or WhatsApp. They get accessibility to all the services starting from the courier company, warehousing and fulfillment, to marketing services,” he stated
Rashed first ventured into entrepreneurship in 2012, after a profession in banking, when he based Ingez an errands firm that gave him first-hand expertise in operating an e-commerce enterprise.
“Through the four years I understood a lot of things about logistics, operations, and ecommerce. I saw how small businesses, because they lacked volume, were not a priority for big logistics companies,” stated Rashed, who after Exiting Ingez, based SideUp to sort out challenges confronted by small companies and to assist them scale.
Growth
SideUp’s associate service suppliers allow retailers to promote in 45 nations, which Rashed stated, has opened up new markets, which had beforehand been inaccessible by small enterprises.
SideUp at present serves 2,000 e-commerce companies, which might additionally entry money assortment service and credit score to develop their companies. Its portfolio has grown 30% month-on-month, reaching over $500,000 Gross Merchandise Volume per thirty days.
Riyadh Angels co-founder, Dr. Khalid Al Tawil, stated: “Ecommerce remains fragmented across most of the region, creating a number of challenges for business owners. SideUp’s platform is a giant leap forward giving them a single place to access partners and technology to grow their businesses exponentially. We are excited to see them come to Saudi Arabia and support businesses through their next phase of growth.”
The startup now plans to develop its clientele base by scaling in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and increasing to no less than two different nations earlier than the top of 2023, to faucet the burgeoning e-commerce sector in numerous areas.
The Middle-East and Africa e-commerce markets are set to develop above 11.5% within the subsequent 5 years sustained by web and smartphone penetration, urbanization and cellular procuring, and as extra companies embrace e-commerce, in line with a Mordor Intelligence report.