Digital pharmacy start-up Grinta has raised $8 million in an early funding round to scale its technology platform and accelerate growth across the Egyptian market.
The seed round was co-led by Saudi Arabia’s Raed Ventures and NClude, an Egyptian FinTech fund managed by Dubai-based Global Ventures.
New York-based Endeavor Catalyst and San Francisco-based 500 Global also participated in the round, which brings the total funding raised by Grinta to $9.5m.
Grinta digitises the pharmaceutical supply chain by providing product fulfilment, demand planning and inventory financing for manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and pharmacies.
Egypt has three large distributors and more than 3,000 wholesalers targeting 60,000 fragmented retail pharmacies, making it the largest pharmaceuticals market in Africa worth more than $6 billion.
Founded in late 2021 by Mr Azab, Yosra Badr, Ali Youssef and Hamza Mohamed, Grinta aims to make pharmaceuticals more accessible and affordable in Egypt and Africa.
Grinta has more than 14,000 registered pharmacies and around 20,000 stock-keeping units on its platform and has delivered more than 100,000 orders over the last year.
Endeavor Catalyst, the co-investment vehicle designed to support Endeavor Entrepreneurs, has more than $500 million in assets under management and has made more than 260 investments across over 30 markets. Grinta is the fund’s 10th investment in Egypt.
Egyptian start-ups have raised a total of $488 million in the first 10 months of this year, according to Dubai-based entrepreneurship platform Wamda.
Egypt led the Mena region with 18 deals and came second to the UAE with a total of $113 million raised. The top three fundraisers include FinTech Money Fellows with $31 million, banking platform Telda with $20 million and business-to-business marketplace MaxAB with $40 million.
Egyptian healthcare platform Vezeeta also raised an undisclosed late-stage funding round to fund acquisitions and expansion across the Middle East and Africa.