GoodsMart, online grocery service, secures Bridge round from Algebra Ventures

To read GoodsMart' s founders insights about their recent Bridge funding, scroll below the press release

Capitalising on GoodsMart’s 3x growth in the last 6 months and exceptional customer engagement, Algebra Ventures reinvests in the household shopping app. The Egyptian startup has pioneered unattended delivery in the MENA region.

18 FEB, CAIRO: GoodsMart, the household shopping app that has transformed the shopping experience using unattended delivery, has announced that it has secured additional funding from Algebra Ventures, Egypt’s leading venture capital fund, ahead of its upcoming Series B round.

Pioneering unattended delivery in the MENA region, GoodsMart offers clients an effortless and hassle-free shopping experience using the GoodsMart box, a sleek app, a wallet system for easy payment, and an efficient delivery model.

The innovative service has proven itself indispensable to clients, engaging customers and fostering exceptional brand loyalty and advocacy. Amr Fawzi, GoodsMart’s founder and CEO, attributes the product’s stickiness to a laser-like focus on customer experience and a company culture centred on user satisfaction. ‘Client happiness is our goal,’ says Fawzi. ‘Every single person on the team works to push client satisfaction to unprecedented levels. This is clearly reflected in our customer testimonials and organic engagement on social media, and in our cohort retention rates of over 70% a year in.’

The opportunity has continued to excite their initial investors, Algebra Ventures, who invested $750k in GoodsMart’s Series A round in April 2017. ‘GoodsMart is a uniquely innovative company with tremendous upside potential,’ says Tarek Assaad, Algebra Ventures’ Managing Partner. ‘Their customer-centric approach continues to deliver exceptional results. Since we made our first investment, Amr and his team have improved operational efficiency, added key members to the executive team, signed strategic partnerships, and strengthened the company’s technology platform. We’re delighted to continue supporting GoodsMart beyond our initial investment.’ This investment comes as GoodsMart prepares to raise its Series B investment round. GoodsMart has grown its business three-fold in the last six months and plans to use the acquired investment to further scale its business, upgrade its warehouse facilities, and bolster its operational capabilities.

Speaking about plans for the acquired investment, Fawzi adds, ‘We’re going to use this investment to prepare for the upcoming expansion phase while continuing to maintain awesome client experience.’

Below, we give some MAGNiTT exclusive insights from GoodsMart co-founders Amr Fawzi and Ahmed Sudan on their Bridge fundraise:

This is your 2nd round of investment as a Company. How did you manage to convince the key investors to participate based on an idea?

This investment is considered to be the second, after raising a previous round with $750K in 2017. Having significant demand in the market for a startup such as GoodsMart is very important to encourage investors. However, it’s worth mentioning that investors continuously search for startups that fulfil customers’ evolving needs with a top-notch experience and have proper functional operational model and these were the main edges that got them to participate in the first place.

How many people are you in the founding team and does the team have start-up experience before?

Two people are in founding team, Amr Fawzi and Ahmed Sudan. Coming from different corporate backgrounds, this was their first startup experience.

What kind of talent are you looking to acquire to grow your team?

GoodsMart is always in search of different talents and we are always happy to adopt candidates and people who believe in learning new things while having the grit to execute them. GoodsMart gives the space for its employees who have passion to impose and own new ideas.

Scalability is often a major challenge for startups across the region. How do you look to scale into the larger markets across MENA and potentially beyond?

We are currently studying potential markets to scale GoodsMart services & after doing a deep research we’ve found promising potential to launch across the MENA region. That’s mainly because GoodsMart services solve daily household problems and offers convenience to its clients.

E-commerce Funding