Fawry (the “Company”, FWRY.CA on the Egyptian Exchange), Egypt’s leading provider of e- payments solutions and digital banking services, announced that it has finalised an investment in alsoug.com, Sudan’s largest online ads platform and marketplace, to assist in the development of alsoug’s new fintech platform, Cashi. Fawry has invested in the alsoug.com/Cashi holding company, marking the company’s first venture capital investment outside of Egypt.
Sudan’s first venture capital funding round has been announced, and this investment is part of it. The Company’s presence catalyzed interest from other significant Western VC players, and Fawry played a key role in guaranteeing the success of the USD 5 million round. As a strategic investor in alsoug, Fawry plans to use its extensive experience with white label technology solutions to assist the platform in scaling up, improving its merchant acquisition operation, refining its go-to-market strategy, and providing valuable insights that inform high-level strategy across the business.
Alsoug, Sudan’s leading consumer internet platform and largest digital marketplace, was founded in 2016 by a world-class team of technology entrepreneurs. Alsoug, a platform where sellers can list everything from real estate and cars to services and commodities, is one of Sudan’s most popular apps on the Google Play app store, with two million downloads.
Despite the political and economic challenges facing Sudan as it undergoes a transformative political transition, the platform has grown rapidly since 2016, owing to alsoug’s highly skilled in-house developers, extensive coverage by its on-the-ground teams, and Sudan’s promising economic fundamentals. Alsoug will considerably increase its service offering in the future, establishing a new payments network capable of serving consumers across Sudan, one of the largest countries on the African continent, and building on its strategic cooperation with Fawry.
“We’re delighted to be kicking off our partnership with alsoug, one of Sudan’s most exciting prospects and a Sudanese leader in tech innovation. This is our first investment foray outside of Egypt in our thirteen years of operation, and we’re confident that our story with alsoug and Cashi will be a special one. Fawry’s investment in alsoug delivers on our plans to venture into underserved international markets by leveraging our technology and teaming up with strong local players. This investment will provide us the opportunity to strategically expand our footprint into Africa and transfer the experience we’ve gained in the dynamic Egyptian market to neighboring Sudan, an economy with major potential across several sectors and with a significant pool of entrepreneurial talent. Meanwhile, Fawry’s strategic partnership with alsoug leaves it ideally placed to help guide the platform’s rollout of a countrywide payments system, a feat which Fawry has already managed through a scalable, robust, and best-in-class technology platform.” said: Fawry CEO Eng. Ashraf Sabry
“This investment marks a significant milestone not just for alsoug, but for the nascent tech space in Sudan as a whole, which has until today been essentially shut out of the global capital markets. I hope this investment is the first of many and that the huge potential of the tech sector in Sudan is fully realized in the coming years. We are looking forward to working with Fawry, and our new strategic shareholders, to continue our expansion from the classifieds and marketplace space into payments. We will build a payments platform that will deliver financial inclusion to all Sudanese.” said Alsoug co-founder and CEO Tarneem (Nina) Saeed