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 cost gateways, API integration for transport, 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 World, Riyadh Angels, Alex Angels, Al Tuwaijri Fund and Saudi angel investor Faisal AlAbdulsalam.
SideUp founder and CEO Waleed Rashed advised TechCrunch he was impressed to hyperlink small retailers to e-commerce assist, after realizing they had been ignored by giant service suppliers.
“There may be a number of speak about how e-commerce is scaling, however nonetheless, we’re not empowering sufficient of these (micro, small and medium enterprises) which might be promoting on-line. Retailers want many providers and an entire ecosystem to achieve success,” stated Rashed.
“This is the reason I made a decision to empower small and medium companies; SideUp is for the retailers within the village, or these promoting merchandise over Instagram, Fb or WhatsApp. They get accessibility to all of the providers ranging from the courier firm, warehousing and success, to advertising providers,” 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.
“By the 4 years I understood a number of issues about logistics, operations, and ecommerce. I noticed how small companies, as a result of they lacked quantity, weren’t a precedence for giant logistics corporations,” stated Rashed, who after Exiting Ingez, based SideUp to deal with challenges confronted by small companies and to assist them scale.
Progress
SideUp’s companion service suppliers allow retailers to promote in 45 international locations, which Rashed stated, has opened up new markets, which had beforehand been inaccessible by small enterprises.
SideUp at the moment serves 2,000 e-commerce companies, which may additionally entry money assortment service and credit score to broaden their companies. Its portfolio has grown 30% month-on-month, attaining over $500,000 Gross Merchandise Quantity monthly.
Riyadh Angels co-founder, Dr. Khalid Al Tawil, stated: “Ecommerce stays fragmented throughout a lot of the area, creating quite a lot of challenges for enterprise house owners. SideUp’s platform is a big leap ahead giving them a single place to entry companions and know-how to develop their companies exponentially. We’re excited to see them come to Saudi Arabia and assist companies by means of their subsequent section of progress.”
The startup now plans to develop its clientele base by scaling in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and increasing to at the very least two different international locations earlier than the tip of 2023, to faucet the burgeoning e-commerce sector in several areas.
The Center-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 cell procuring, and as extra companies embrace e-commerce, based on a Mordor Intelligence report.
