Egypt’s ExpandCart raises $2.5 million Series A to help merchants build online stores

Egypt’s ExpandCart raises $2.5 million Series A to help merchants build online stores

Cairo-based ecommerce enablement platform ExpandCart has raised $2.5 million in a Series A round, it announced today in a statement to MENAbytes. The round was led by Egyptian VC Sawari Ventures with the Agility Ventures (the corporate VC arm of logistics firm Agility), and Graphene Ventures. Two angel investors also took part in the round.

Founded in 2013 by Amr Shawqy and Sameh Nabil, ExpandCart enables individuals and businesses to build online stores in Arabic and/or English using its platform. The startup also offers an integrated point-of-sale system for retailers to make it easy for them to manage their omnichannel presence. ExpandCart's solutions come with branded mobile apps for merchants.

It claims to be the leading ecommerce (enablement) platform in the region with over 20,000 merchants as its users (it is not clear if these merchants are active or have used ExpandCart at a certain point) in over 40 countries.

ExpandCart's plans start at $19 per month and go as high as $99 a month - which is slightly cheaper than Shopify which has plans starting from $29 per month. There are thousands of merchants in the region that use Shopify but ExapndCart comes with easy integration options