Editor’s note: African-Startups is a sister publication of EU-Startups, bringing trusted coverage of startups, venture capital, and innovation across Africa.
Fincart, the Egypt-based AI-powered operating platform for e-commerce merchants, has raised an oversubscribed $2.8 million in a Seed round.
The funding was co-led by Launch Africa and Antler MENAP, with participation from Yango Ventures, Five35 Ventures, Bluestream Capital, Hi2 Global, Kalahari Venture Labs, and other regional investors.
“Egypt’s e-commerce market is one of Africa’s most compelling infrastructure opportunities: high-volume, cash-on-delivery-dominant, and deeply underserved at the SME level. The organic, referral-driven growth tells you everything about product-market fit,” said Lina Kacyem, investment manager at Launch Africa.
Fincart will use the new funding to develop its AI platform, grow its team, build strategic partnerships, and expand into MENA and African markets.
The announcement follows a pre-Seed round in January 2025 led by Plus VC, with participation from Orbit Ventures and Plug and Play.
Mostafa Masry and Nihal Ali founded Fincart in 2023 in response to a noticeable issue: despite the rapid growth of e-commerce in Egypt and the MENA region, revenue is being lost at various points due to unreliable shipping, disjointed customer support, and outdated growth strategies.
“We saw small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) struggling with failed deliveries that killed their margins and scattered customer conversations that broke trust. We decided to build a fix—not just a tool, but an end-to-end operating system designed to help e-commerce brands sell more, deliver faster, and support better,” says the founding duo.
Fincart currently serves more than 450 merchants and enterprise clients across categories including fashion, cosmetics, accessories, and electronics, and has facilitated nearly $20 million (EGP 1 billion) in gross merchandise value.
“Everything we build starts with sitting down with merchants and understanding where they’re losing time, money, or customers. Most are juggling five or six disconnected tools just to run their business shipping, payments, customer engagement none of which talk to each other. We built Fincart to replace all of that with a single control panel where merchants can sell more, deliver faster, and manage their customers, without the friction of stitching tools together,” said Nihal Ali, COO and co-founder of Fincart.
At present, the company connects with over 40 courier companies across Africa, making it the largest network on the continent.
The company says 40% of its customer acquisitions come through referrals, with zero marketing spend over the past three years. Both founders bring experience from companies including Careem, Glovo, Vodafone, and Delivery Hero.
