Egypt’s B2B marketplace startup Grinta has raised $8 million in a Seed funding round to be invested in scaling Grinta’s full-stack tech platform, expanding the team and accelerating growth across the Egyptian market.
The fund was co-led by Raed Ventures and Nclude. Other investors include Silicon Valley-based Endeavor Catalyst and 500 Global, bringing its total funding to date to $9.5 million.
“We are very excited to have the right investor base as our backers that share the same values and vision of making Pharma accessible and affordable across Africa. As we plan to expand our footprint in the main Pharma hubs on the continent, we will also enable Egyptian and regional Pharma manufacturers to further penetrate the $50 billion African market,” Mohamed Azab, co-founder and CEO of Grinta said.
Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 14 (June 3 – Sept 2, 2024) begins registrations; get massive discounts with early registration here.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations here.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and invest in Africa’s finest startups here.
Grinta was founded by serial Endeavour entrepreneurs; Mohamed Azab, Yosra Badr, Ali Youssef, and Hamza Mohamed, who are active members of the regional entrepreneurship ecosystem and have successfully built and scaled several healthcare companies over the last 12 years across Africa. The founders have attracted impact-driven top talents across all verticals and reached approximately 300 employees.
“Grinta is an exceptional team of serial healthcare entrepreneurs on a mission to improve access to and affordability of medicines in Egypt and Africa,” said Wael Nafee, Partner at Raed Ventures. “By empowering pharmacies to be more efficient at running their business, fixing a broken supply chain end-to-end, and partnering with all stakeholders in the value chain they will realise this vision. We’re proud to be doubling down on Grinta for this funding round as they expand across Africa.”
Grinta is a managed marketplace that modernizes the pharmaceutical supply chain by empowering independent pharmacies.
Endeavor Catalyst Managing Partner Allen Taylor said Grinta represents his company’s 10th investment in Egypt, making Endeavor Catalyst proudly one of the most active international investors in the country.
“As an Endeavor Entrepreneur and Board Member, we have witnessed how Azab’s multiplier effect has impacted the local ecosystem. Our recent mapping showed that he alone has already inspired, invested, and mentored more than 100 local businesses in the Middle East, and this is only the beginning. We are huge fans of Azab and his team, knowing they can lead the next frontier of innovation in Egypt,” Taylor said.
The end-to-end platform offers a seamless and easy-to-use experience, giving access to the full spectrum of traceable pharmaceutical and medical products from multiple vendors in addition to providing fulfillment, demand planning, and inventory financing.
The company is working with all stakeholders across the value chain, manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and pharmacies, to build a data-driven, reliable, and efficient pharmaceutical supply chain.
Egypt has strong local manufacturers, 3 large distributors and more than 3,000 wholesalers all targeting 60,000 fragmented retail pharmacies that are yet to be digitized, which makes it the largest pharmaceuticals market in Africa with a size surpassing $6 billion.
“Since inception in 2021, Grinta has acquired two companies, PH Store, a similar digital platform in northern Egypt, and EME, a software development company with a solid tech team. As a result, the company has expanded aggressively across seven governorates in Egypt, with over 14,000 registered pharmacies on its platform, 20,000+ SKUs and has delivered more than 100,000 orders over the last year,” Azab added.