An Egyptian eCommerce Startup Which Only Launched In Q4 2019 Has Raised One Of The Largest Seed Rounds

Homzmart, an Egyptian e-commerce startup that has built a marketplace for furniture, has raised USD 1.3 Mn in a seed round led by Chinese VC firm, MSA Capital, with participation from Equitrust, Oman Technology Fund (OTF), 500 Startups, and some other strategic investors.

Homzmart, which only launched late last year, is an e-commerce marketplace that connects furniture manufacturers and vendors with customers, enabling the online sales of furniture. The startup was co-founded by Mahmoud Ibrahim and Ibrahim Mohamed, both former employees of Rocket Internet’s Jumia.

Mahmoud, who is the CEO of Homzmart, told MENAbytes that Homzmart was birthed to solve pain points of both customers and furniture manufacturers.

“We are going after a huge market valued at more than USD 60 Bn. There are 25 million people in the MENA region searching for home furnishing every month with no serious player serving them online.”

Homzmart is making both discovery and purchasing furniture easier for customers. The marketplace helps customers choose from thousands of SKUs from hundreds of sellers on its platform.

“It is something that is not possible to do if you’re buying offline as the process of shopping furniture offline is extremely time-consuming, lacks variety and there’s no way for customers to compare prices. Homzmart addresses all these pain points,” said Mahmoud.

For sellers and manufacturers, he highlighted that a very large number of them cannot afford showrooms as it is very expensive to open one, and thus, do not have any. Homzmart is, thus, providing an online showroom for their furniture.

“When a customer is looking to make the purchase, they either go to established brands or ask their friends for a referral which means a lot of good sellers never get discovered by the customers. What we are doing is giving these manufacturers and sellers access to technology and helping them land more sales by reaching out to new customers.”

According to MENAbytes, the platform currently has over 10,000 SKUs and has already served over 2,500 customers since its launch a few months ago. For what it’s worth, Homzmart’s Facebook page, with over 30 reviews, has a rating of 5 out of 5 which, is in itself, a rarity for any online brand.

Homzmart’s USD 1.3 Mn raise, which seems like one of the single largest seed rounds ever closed by an Egyptian startup, will help the startup to scale its tech, enhance customer experience, grow its selection, and expand the team.

Featured Image Courtesy: MENAbytes