Investor Insights: Morocco’s Chari hits $100m valuation

Story 1: Morocco’s Chari hits $100m valuation

Highlights

• Morocco-based B2B e-commerce and retail startup Chari has secured a bridge round at a $100 million valuation. This follows a $5 million seed round raised last October which valued the company at $70 million.
• The YC and Harvard University-backed Chari operate as a mobile app that allows small retailers in Morocco and Tunisia to order products from its partner FMCG manufacturers and deliver items in less than 24 hours.
• The company recently acquired Moroccan ledger book Karny.ma, which provides credit and bookkeeping services to about 50,000 merchants.

Source: The National

Zoom Out

African markets, though diverse, have some common themes, one of which is the largely fragmented fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector. Often, both local and multinational manufacturers do not have visibility and control over their own distribution channels while distributors have to deal with discrepancies in prices and inefficient logistics. For small informal retailers, much of their time is spent on fulfilling orders and struggling without sufficient capital. Like Chari, many startups in the B2B e-commerce space in Africa, such as Nigeria’s TradeDepot and Egypt’s Capiter, have built digital products to address these bottlenecks in the FMCG sector.

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Story 2: Kenya’s Poa Internet raises $28m Series C

Highlights

• Poa Internet Service, a Kenyan startup that offers unlimited WiFi internet service to dwellers of low-income areas in Nairobi, has secured $28m in Series C funding.
• The round was led by Africa50 with participation from Novastar Ventures. Africa50 is an infrastructure financier backed by the Africa Development Bank (AfDB), the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), Bank Al-Maghrib (the Central Bank of the Kingdom of Morocco, and 28 African countries.
• Poa Internet, was launched 5 years ago to provide affordable and fast internet services to low and middle-income neighbourhoods through its street wifi connections.

Source: TechCrunch

Zoom Out 

One of the major causes of the slow rate of digitisation in Africa is the lack of affordable internet. As of December 2020, only 29% of Africans had access to the internet (per A4AI report), which often comes at a high price and further broadens the existing digital divide between Africa and developed regions. The bulk of Africa’s internet-excluded populations reside in remote areas. Poa’s business model—providing fast, unlimited internet access to low and middle-income areas, via street wifi connections, and for a monthly subscription fee of $13—allows the startup effectively capture areas where giant telcos are often reluctant to play in.

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Story 3: South Africa’s delivery startup Orderin raises $4.7m

Highlights

• Delivery-as-a-service (DaaS) startup Orderin has raised $4.7 milion in a recently closed pre-series B funding round, which will allow the business to scale up its infrastructure and enhance last mile delivery.
• Founded in 2013, this latest round of funding brings the total investment secured by the startup to $20 million.
• Orderin provides delivery services for the likes of McDonalds and Pick n Pay, with more than 120 employees and delivery opportunities for a further 2,000 people. With the funding, it intends to also grow the headcount of delivery partners to 3,000.

Source: Venture Burn

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Orderin’s latest fundraising comes at a time when the e-commerce industry in South Africa, and the continent at large, reaches new high. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, up to 68% of South African consumers now shop more online and e-commerce in the southern African country has been accelerated by five years, per a December report from Heavy Chef. The pandemic-induced boom in Africa’s digital economy is expected to continue its exponential growth trend with the continent’s e-commerce value projected to quadruple by 2030.