E-commerce tycoon Sophia Alj’s Chari closes $5-million seed round with $70-million valuation

Morocco-based B2B* e-commerce and fintech startup Chari has closed a $5-million seed round co-led by Rocket Internet, Global Founders Capital and P1 Ventures.

Chari partners with FMCG multinationals and local manufacturers to distribute their goods to mom and pop shops in less than 24 hours. It also provides payment facilities and financial services through its recent acquisition of Karny.ma.

The latest round follows the company’s completion of Y Combinator last summer. Its post-Y Combinator funding took four weeks to close and ultimately valued Chari at $70 million.

The startup is looking to raise a Series-A round in coming months.

“We have carefully selected the VCs of this seed round based on their ability to help us build a great business,” Chari Co-Founder and CEO Ismael Belkhayat said. “We are now focusing on achieving our short-term targets to raise a significant Series A in six to nine months.”

Investors who partook in the round include Plug and Play, Y Combinator, Village Capital/MetLife Foundation, Orange Ventures, Air Angels — AirBnB investors, SPE Capital, Pincus Private Equity, Reflect Ventures, The Chandaria family,  Propertyfinder CEO and Founder Michael Lahyani and the management company of an Ivy League university.

The recent investor excitement around Chari is the result of the procurement challenges facing approximately 300,000 grocery stores across Morocco and Tunisia. In addition to these two countries, the startup is building out its platform for retailers across French-speaking Africa.

Chari also plans to embed financial services such as digital payments, money transfers and Buy-Now-Pay-Later in its product roadmap.

Chari

Chari is an e-commerce platform for grocery stores in Francophone Africa. It allows shop owners to order anything that they sell in their shops and to get it delivered the next day.

The company was founded in early 2020 by wife and husband duo, Sophia Alj and Ismael Belkhayat. They were formerly strategy consultants with McKinsey and BCG.

*B2B: Business-to-Business.