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Kenzz, a mass e-commerce startup founded in February by Egyptian entrepreneurs Ahmed Atef, Mahmoud Al Silk, and Moataz Sami, has raised $3.5 million in a seed funding round to expand its operations in the Egyptian mass market. The round was led by institutional investors and venture capital firms.
Outliers Venture Capital, a U.S.-based venture capital firm with investments in the Middle East and North Africa, led the $3.5-million seed funding round. HOF Capital, Foundation Ventures, and Samurai Incubate were among the other investors who participated in the round.
With e-commerce still not fully realized and optimized in Egypt and, more broadly, across the Middle East and North Africa, Atef, Al Silk, and Sami founded Kenzz in February to deepen e-commerce adoption in Egypt by digitizing e-commerce experiences, making them exciting, fun, and sociable for users.
The $3.5-million capital injection from the recently completed seed funding round will be used to expand the company’s talent pool, deepen its product portfolio, and assemble a diverse range of products to meet the preferences and tastes of various consumer segments.
The startup stated that a portion of the funds will be used for strategic technology investments, as well as the launch of its new app.
Kenzz CEO Ahmed Atef commented on the recent development, saying that the startup is thrilled to have completed the seed funding round at such an ideal time to fully optimize e-commerce in Egypt and the Middle East.
“We designed Kenzz to appeal specifically to people who aren’t yet convinced that e-commerce is a practical and mainstream mode of shopping,” Atef said, adding, “We are revolutionizing the shopping experience to deliver relevancy, convenience, trust, and value, and we look forward to the future with great confidence.”
While discussing what Zenzz intends to do differently than other players in the e-commerce industry, Atef said Zenzz is targeting a completely different segment that Amazon and the big platforms are not targeting because they are centralized in big cities and geared toward people who are comfortable buying online.
“What we’re doing is bringing that experience much closer to the masses and building a reliable, trustworthy e-commerce platform that caters specifically to the mass market, removing barriers to purchase while capitalizing on the social engagement and social interaction aspects of e-commerce,” he explained.
