Venture financiers continue to see value and potential in tech start-ups from Egypt, with social e-commerce venture Taager announcing a US$6.4-million seed round on Thursday and start-up MaxAB raising US$40-million for expansion early this month.

This was in addition to other funding rounds closed for Egyptian start-ups ShipBlu (which raised an undisclosed amount) and e-commerce platform Zeew, which bagged        US$170 000 this month alone.

In June, Egyptian start-ups nearly surpassed the amount of US$190-million in venture financing raised in 2020.

Experts have attributed the flow of venture capital into Egyptian start-ups to recent regulatory relaxations that allow the country’s central bank to approve e-commerce and Fintech permits for companies.

For Taager, the latest US$6.4-million funding round, led by pan-Africa focused venture capital firm 4DX Ventures, brings its total capital raise to US$7-million since launching in December 2019. 

Raed Ventures, Beco Capital, Breyer Capital and other private investors such as Magnus Olsson also participated in the round. The capital investment into Taager also marks Breyer Capital’s first investment in the MENA region.

Taager provides “online sellers and traders with a complete suite of back-end and integrated services, from operational and logistical infrastructure such as storage and shipping to an online marketplace to host their products” helping to connect sellers with wholesalers.

It uses high technological solutions such as AI and data science to attain this, it said in a statement, with its gross merchandise value (GMV) picking up a growth rate of about 40% month-on-month.

Mohamed Elhorishy, co-founder and CEO of Taager, said: “Small and medium sized businesses are the engine of Egypt’s economy and we want to empower them with the best tools to drive their growth. In just over a year, we have built a huge body of data that does just that and we want to enable many more social entrepreneurs and online merchants to grow their businesses throughout Egypt and the MENA region.”

The new capital raised will be deployed to expand and the venture also plans to scale and boost its technology as well as expand its talent pool.