EGYPT – Egyptian e-grocery marketplace ON Market has raised US$215,000 in pre-seed funding to further expand its operations in Cairo, Alexandria, Tanta, Mansoura, and multiple other cities across the country.
Founded in June 2020 in Tanta by Moatasem Marzouk, Seif Yasser, Ahmed Najjar, and Moataz Marzouk, ON Market empowers grocery retailers with tech solutions to build and sustain online commerce.
The startup, which graduated from the AUC Venture Lab’s acceleration programme in 2021, also connects customers through their app with nearby grocery retailers, enabling them to order from multiple retailers in a single order.
The pre-seed funding comes from a host of angel investors will be used to help ON Market expand into more cities over the course of 2022.
“Our customers have trust and loyalty to brands and retailers that cannot be easily replaceable. We develop our products in-house to connect them with the retailers they trust and love, where they can follow their latest offers, pricing updates, and product availability.
“For the first time in the market, we allow them to order from multiple stores by placing only one order and getting it delivered all at once.
“We’ve surveyed a sample of over 200 customers, and we found that 90 per cent of them prefer to get all their orders at once, even if it’ll take more delivery time, even up to an hour,” said Marzouk.
Yasser Alghamdi, the lead investor, said the grocery market in MENA, including Egypt, was promising.
“We believe the team behind ON Market has the necessary experience and mindset to build a remarkable success story, and we’ll support them to achieve that all of us together,” he said.
By the end of 2021, the company had grown 10x in only one city, delivered 20,000 orders with a GMV of EGP 4 million (US$218,000), onboarded 70 shops, and achieved a 65 percent retention rate.
In February 2022, it expanded the business to Nasr City and Masr El Gedida, with plans to grow to Mansoura in Q3 2022 and Alexandria in Q2 2023, earning US$6 million in GMV, reports Afrikan Heroes.
Influenced by the global market boom in online groceries, the market in Egypt has grown drastically, attracting more than US$150 million in investments for the year 2021, and is expected to gain more investments in the next coming years.
Egypt’s grocery sector is estimated to be worth over US$35 billion and is predicted to grow at a rate of 15% to 20% over the next three years.
The market is not yet completely disrupted, presenting an opportunity for ON Markets to tap into, before extending to MENA’s US$200 billion markets.
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