Egyptian company Brimore, raises $25M in a Series A funding

Brimore, a social commerce platform in Egypt, has raised $25 million in a Series A round led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Endure Capital, with participation from Fawry, Flourish, Endeavor Catalyst Fund, and existing Brimore investors such as Algebra Ventures, Disruptech, Khwarizmi ventures, and Vision Ventures. The new funding, according to Brimore, will be used to expand the company’s product line and supplier base across Africa, to become Africa’s leading social commerce app.

The company was launched by Mohamed Abdulaziz and Ahmed Sheikha in 2017. Brimore is a social commerce platform that connects developing brands with a network of resellers that use social media to market and sell their products.

“When we started working on Brimore, we had the intention of making the products ourselves. However, because it was a very asset-heavy approach at the time, creating our products wasn’t the best decision,” stated Brimore CEO Abdulaziz in an interview.

“As a result, we began scaling by offering other products. At the same time, seeing how the internet formed on the other side was instructive. From a seller standpoint, we began onboarding an increasing number of sellers. The majority of them are female.”

Brimore grew 400 times in three years, building a large network of approximately 75,000 resellers to serve 27 cities across Egypt, with a focus on rural and distant locations. It provides rising brand owners with market penetration prospects through its unique infrastructure and patented technology while tailoring solutions of online and offline sales channels enables its sellers to unlock an alternative and flexible revenue stream and become local business leaders.

Brimore’s progress will be powered by the new funding, which will allow the company to double its network of vendors and suppliers, double the number of workers, and triple the number of products sold in the next year. It revealed plans to expand its physical logistics capabilities and operate in three countries by 2023.

Brimore employs “its unique infrastructure–which is an ecosystem of supply, demand, logistics, and finance– and patented technology to provide market penetration chances to developing brand owners,” according to a statement. “We’re creating a smart, dependable infrastructure as well as a complete environment that allows people to transact.” So anyone can do commerce business with Brimore, whether they have a shop or are a stay-at-home mom,” said Ahmed Sheikha, the company’s chief business and investment officer.

According to Abdulaziz, 24% of Brimore’s sellers report a ‘significant change’ in their lifestyle and 88% indicate an increase in revenue since they started using the platform. Brimore’s next step will be to “expand in Egypt by 50x during the next couple of years,” according to the company’s CEO. Other monies will be used to increase the company’s logistics and operational infrastructure, double its employees, triple product catalogues, and quadruple its network of vendors and suppliers.

Brimore’s aspirations to expand financial products, particularly loans, and replicate its Egyptian efforts across other African markets were also discussed during the call by Abdulaziz.

“In Africa, we want to crack the concept of going to market.” “We recognize that Africa is like 54 different marketplaces, each with its dynamics,” – Abdulaziz..

“Our idea is that if we can nail the concept of going to market through people, reaching both online and offline, and adding the element of trust to the mix, we will be on our way to the new age of commerce, with cross-border trade as our next step.” Because we facilitate the difficult aspect of market access, anyone can make anything and sell it anywhere.”

The fresh financing round was spearheaded by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Endure Capital. This is the IFC’s largest direct investment in the social commerce market internationally, according to Walid Labadi, the country manager for Egypt.

“Every decade, a firm emerges that fuses technology, operations excellence, and people capital to generate tremendous impact and value,” said Tarek Fahim, Managing Partner at Endure Capital. We are honoured to be Brimore’s first and ongoing partner in their objective to build the infrastructure and technology for social commerce in Egypt and Africa to transform the lives of their partners, particularly women who aspire to a brighter future for themselves and their children.”

“As Brimore witnessed tremendous growth over the past three years, Algebra has worked closely with the company to support in strategic and operational areas, especially recruitment, which is a core area of focus at Algebra,” said Tarek Assaad, Managing Partner at Algebra Ventures. We invested in the initial round of funding and have continued to do so in subsequent rounds to guarantee that the company’s growth trajectory remains on track. We are ecstatic to see such a great group of investors joins the company, many of whom have previously co-invested with us. I’m humbled by how far Mohamed and Ahmed have progressed as leaders and how they continue to drive the company’s execution and vision forward.”

Recall that the company received funding from Fawry in 2021. Fawry said it has identified several potential synergies between Brimore and its areas of business. The company wants to integrate its payments and financial services solutions seamlessly into the Brimore platform, with more collaboration with Fawry’s complementary verticals in commerce and FMCG on the way. “Fawry’s investment in Brimore is a significant vote of confidence in the company and its business model, reaffirming our belief in the revolutionary ability of digital tools to revolutionize commerce in Egypt,” said Mohamed Abdulaziz, co-founder, and CEO of Brimore.