FlapKap, a tech-enabled revenue-based financing platform in the Mena region, “revolutionizing” e-commerce growth, announced the close of its $3.6 million Seed round.
The investment round “included participation from Bolt by QED, Nclude, Outliers, and A15.”
This latest capital injection “comes six months after the company’s pre-seed raise and coincides with the company recording significant milestones of an MoM growth of ~200% in the amount of funding disbursed and the number of serviced clients.”
With the new funding, FlapKap plans “to increase its capacity in helping more e-commerce businesses in the MENA region scale and maximize their growth potential, as well as consolidate its position as the region’s foremost and leading revenue-based financing player.”
The company aims “to solidify its presence in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt by offering e-commerce businesses the ability to scale their inventory and digital ads now, while flexibly paying later.”
Co-founded by Ahmad Coucha and Khaled Nassef, with founding team Sherif Bichara and Adel Hodroj, FlapKap “enables e-commerce businesses to scale and grow by targeting businesses that have traditionally had limited access to bank or venture capital financing.”
FlapKap offers insights and analytics “to e-commerce businesses to help them accelerate growth and swift access to working capital financing for deployment on inventory and digital marketing spending.”
The company prides itself “on fast and data-driven decision-making, which allows it to make merchants an offer less than 48 hours after they sign up.”
Fees are “paid back as a percentage of revenues, meaning that if revenues slow down, so do repayments, and merchants do not have to worry about late fees or penalties.”
Targeting e-commerce businesses which have been operational for at least 6 months, FlapKap’s new capital and low entry threshold “means it is able to welcome a lot more online stores to its already expansive roster.”
FlapKap has so far “worked with some of the region’s most promising e-commerce firms, some of which include Dresscode, Palma, Tam’s Shoemaker, and Raw African, amongst others, helping in some cases generate >85% increase in revenue and over 70% increase in net profits within a few months.”
FlapKap has also recently “integrated its AI-based insights and financial data analytics with Shopify, Woocommerce, Facebook and Google, and expects to strike more partnerships with players in the ecosystem.”
Ahmad Coucha, FlapKap CEO and Cofounder said:
‘As we develop our platform and expand our capacity to enable even more e-commerce platforms to attain their full growth potential, we’re excited to be joined by prominent global investors with deep knowledge and extensive expertise in the revenue-based financing space, having previously invested in some of our international peers. Our rapid growth within a short period of time demonstrates the massive unmet demand in our region and, being founders ourselves, we take huge pride in being able to offer this founder-friendly financing to founders and entrepreneurs all across the region.”
Investor QED has “invested in some of FlapKap’s most successful international peers such as Wayflyer and Fairplay, which have raised more than $900 million in financing combined.”
Gbenga Ajayi, Partner at QED commented:
“Having invested and worked with similar companies to FlapKap across other regions such as Europe and Latin America, we are confident this team can attain similar success”.
Basil Moftah, Partner at Nclude added:
“We value companies and entrepreneurs that create innovative solutions that push the envelope and are proud to support FlapKap’s previously unavailable financial services to SMEs in the Mena regions.”
Mohammed Almeshekah, Partner at Outliers commented:
“Coucha and Khaled have combined their first-hand experience and insights at Kijami & N26 and hit the ground running with strong initial performance. We are thrilled to be part of their journey from the beginning”
The growing post-pandemic trend in online shopping “presents a great opportunity for FlapKap to expand its specialized solution to solve the growth-destructive challenges of emerging online stores in the region.”
Recent research suggests that “the e-commerce markets in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt alone account for a combined $21.4 billion and is projected to grow by more than 50 per cent to $33.3 billion in 2025.”
Also, as global shopping festivals such as Singles Day and Black Friday, popularly referred to as ‘White Friday’ in the Mena region, continue “to rise in popularity and spend [Mena shoppers spent ~$6 billion on Black Friday in 2021], it is increasingly becoming imperative for online stores to prep themselves to take full advantage of the growing phenomenon.”