Egypt’s B2B Marketplace Cartona raises $4.5m Pre-Series A

Cartona, the Egypt-based B2B platform connecting retailers to manufacturers and wholesalers, has successfully raised $4.5 million in its latest funding round, led by Global Ventures, MAGNiTT reported.

Kepple Africa Ventures, T5 Ventures, and a group of key angel investors also participated in leading the Pre-Series A round.

The Egypt-based team plans to use its newly acquired funds to further develop its Tech Stack, launch new products and expand geographically across Egypt. The technology stack is a combination of programming languages, frameworks, and tools that developers use to build a web or mobile app.

Cartona was launched in August last year to digitize the traditional, predominantly offline trade market in Egypt, enabling grocery retailers to order their store needs digitally from a curated network of sellers.

Since its launch, Cartona has aggregated over 30,000 users in Cairo and Alexandria. It has processed over 400,000 delivered orders with an annualized gross merchandise value of over $63 million.

Cartona works with 100 fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, 1,000 distributors, and wholesalers, offering consumers over 10,000 products listed on its platform including dry, fresh, and frozen food.

MENA-based E-commerce startups have observed steady growth this year, according to MAGNiTT’s August 2021 Venture Investment Dashboard.

The E-commerce industry has been the second most active and third most funded industry in MENA over 2021 year to date, driven by an eight percent year-on-year increase in number of deals closed in the region, and a solid 78 percent year-on-year growth in amount of funding.