Bosta, an Egyptian startup in the shipping and delivery field, has raised about $6.7m in a new round of financing, which will go towards boosting its expansion. The Cairo-based startup, which provides its services in a concentrated fashion to e-commerce companies, faces competition from other companies in the market, including Fetchr and Aramex. It plans to expand into Dubai and Saudi Arabia by the end of 2021, and aims to achieve one million monthly deliveries, according to CEO Mohamed Ezzat. The financing round was led by Jordanian venture capital firm, Silicon Badia. Other participants included 4DX Ventures, an investment firm focused on the African market, along with undisclosed Saudi and angel investors. This comes on the heels of a $1.8m financing round secured in 2020 from DPDgroup, a European company focusing on package delivery, bringing the total pooled financing so far to nearly $9m. Bosta currently carries out around 300,000 deliveries per month in Egypt, and reports indicate that it works with 3,000 companies, including online shopping platforms Amazon, Noon, and Jumia. The startup provides a variety of services to e-commerce companies, including next-day delivery, purchase order tracking, returns and exchanges, and cash collection. "E-commerce companies focus on selling, whilst we focus on operations and delivery services," Ezzat said, adding that the company has around 210 employees and a network of around 500 drivers. Silicon Badia has expressed its admiration for Bosta's accomplishments in a challenging sector, and in a major regional market. "The numbers speak for themselves," said Namik Al Zoubi, Managing Partner of Silicon Badia. "This company is on its way to triple its KPIs this year, along with maintaining an excellent customer experience, which is crucial in this area." Ezzat co-founded Bosta after previously serving as Operations Manager for Lynks, an Egyptian e-commerce company. Through that experience, he noticed a gap between logistics and e-commerce in Egypt, particularly with regard to last-mile deliveries, or product deliveries to customers, which he believes is holding back the growth of the online retail business.
