While Gearing Up For The Launch of Its First Venture, E-commerce Venture Builder Brantu Picks Up USD 1.2 Mn Seed Investment
Brantu, a Swedish- Egyptian startup that specializes in e-commerce venture building, has picked up seed investment of USD 1.2 million from Swedish firm Helhjärtad Finans AB. Founded in late 2016, Brantu aims to develop an e-commerce ecosystem in emerging markets of Middle East and Northern Africa.
Their first venture, Cairo-based Elprices, that was successfully soft launched in October 2017, not only includes physical stores, but offers a price comparison option on all of its signed retailers; giving buyers the option to browse online and physical stores for their desired product at the lowest cost, and giving sellers’ access to new target markets beyond their geographical reach and financial restrictions.
Elprices will start with electronics like mobile phones and laptops along with home appliances, and later expand into more categories. The venture is due for a full launch in the last quarter of this year.
The e-commerce landscape in Egypt has hitherto been dominated by two players – Souq and Jumia. As for price comparison, Yaoota has dominated the scene with the remaining fraction of Egyptian online buyers resorting to a variety of other local and foreign sources to research products online.
“What we are trying to do is bring the best of price comparison and marketplace and put them together in one model so the users have more options to choose from to make informed purchase decisions and offline retailers have a new channel to market and sell their products,” Mohamed Rizk, who has co founded Brantu along with Fredrik Granström.
