- The partner remarked that the range and depth of the founding team of Kenzz “strongly positioned them to integrate a multitude of experiences and talents into developing a category-defining brand and e-commerce champion for Egypt.”
An E-commerce platform based In Egypt and the MENA region, Kenzz has secured $3.5 million in seed capital.
Outliers Venture Capital, a venture capital firm with a focus on the MENA region, headed the round. Samurai Incubate, Foundation Ventures, and HOF Capital are a few of the investors who are taking part.
Ahmed Atef, Mahmoud Al Silk, and Moataz Sami founded the business in February, and it plans to use the seed round to expand the platform’s product categories, attract talent, and make technology investments before launching its app.
The founders of Kenzz contend that Egypt’s high rates of internet usage and purchasing conceal the fact that e-commerce in Egypt and the wider MENA area have not yet been completely fulfilled and optimized. According to Chief Executive Officer Atef, they created Kenzz to increase e-commerce acceptance in Egypt.
Online shoppers in Egypt typically make purchases on major e-commerce sites like Souq, which will become Amazon Egypt in 2021, Jumia, and Noon or social commerce sites that operate in a B2B2C fashion and use Facebook pages and groups.
Both business models have succeeded in boosting e-commerce in Egypt, but according to Atef, the major online retailers ignore the mass market in favor of concentrating their efforts in Egypt’s three largest cities, Cairo, Alexandria, and Giza while smaller social media platforms frequently offer untrusted and disorganized services.
Therefore, Kenzz was developed to make up for the shortcomings of the two models by making items accessible to the general public and providing them in a structured way.
Furthermore, Atef said that the Kenzz model benefits local manufacturers and SMEs by offering information on customer demands, access to these customers, and other information.
In order to satisfy customer requirements, Kenzz is currently fine-tuning its products. According to Atef, the platform’s two-month soft launch saw tremendous customer demands. In this period, he claimed, thousands of clients used the platform, with 50% of them placing orders outside of Egypt’s major cities.
These figures support the idea that there is a huge market for online sales in major cities. However, you unlock this enormous potential when you are so pertinent to them in terms of brand products, rates, and experiences.
Partner at Outliers Venture Capital Sarah AlSaleh stated in a release that the asset-light Kenzz is addressing two important problems that current e-commerce incumbents are not addressing: inexpensive and dependable last-mile logistics and an unwavering consumer trust philosophy.
