After four years as a logistics market, Voo in Egypt was rebranded as side upIt has also changed its strategy to offer an entire suite of ecommerce support services, including payment gateways and API integration for shipping, warehouse, fulfillment, consulting, and other services.
After raising seed funding in the amount of $1.2million, the startup has expanded to Saudi Arabia. Launch Africa VC was among the latest round, along with 500 Global, Riyadh Angels and Alex Angels, Al-Tuwaijri Fund, Saudi angel investor Faisal Al-Abdulsalam, 500 Global, Riyadh Angels and Alex Angels.
SideUp’s CEO and founder Walid RashidTechCrunch spoke to him about his desire to connect smaller merchants and e-commerce support after realizing they were being overlooked in large service providers.
“There is a lot of talk about how to expand e-commerce, but we still don’t enable enough of those (micro and small businesses) that sell online. Merchants need many services and a whole ecosystem to be successful,” Rashid said.
“That is why I decided to enable small and medium businesses; SideUp is for merchants in the village, or those who sell products via Instagram, Facebook or WhatsApp. They get access to all services from the courier company, warehousing and fulfillment, to marketing services.”
After a career as a banker, Rashid started his journey into entrepreneurship in 2012. He founded Ingez, an organization that provided him with first-hand experience in the management of an e-commerce company.
“During the four years, I understood a lot of things about logistics, operations and e-commerce. I saw how small companies, due to their lack of scale, were not a priority for large logistics companies,” said Rashid, who founded SideUp after Exiting Ingez to address the challenges they face. Help small businesses expand.
Growth
SideUp’s partner service providers allow merchants to sell to 45 countries. This has, Rashid stated, opened up new markets previously unobtainable to small businesses.
SideUp currently serves over 2000 e-commerce companies. These businesses also have access cash and credit collection services to help expand their businesses. Its portfolio grew 30% month over month, generating over $500,000 in total merchandise volume per month.
Dr. Khaled Al-Taweel, co-founder of Riyadh Angels, said: “E-commerce remains fragmented across most of the region, which creates a number of challenges for business owners. SideUp is a huge leap forward. It gives them access to technology and partners to help grow their business exponentially. We are excited to see them come to Saudi Arabia and support the business during their next phase of growth.”
The startup plans to expand its customer base into Egypt and Saudi Arabia and to expand to at least two additional countries before 2023 ends. This is to take advantage the booming ecommerce sector in different regions.
According to Mordor Intelligence, e-commerce markets in Africa and the Middle East are expected to grow by more 11.5% over the next five-years. This growth is fueled by smartphone penetration, urbanization, mobile shopping, and the adoption of e-commerce by more companies. Report.
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