Chari, a Morocco-based B2B e-commerce startup with an embedded financing for the FMCG sector, has raised $1 million from Orange Ventures.
As per the transaction, Grégoire de Padirac, partner of Orange Ventures Middle East and Africa, is set to join Chari’s supervisory board.
“We are delighted to have been among the first investors in the Chari adventure, and we look forward to continuing to support the team as it expands into the French-speaking region and the fintech sector. We and Chari believe in the need of digitising local company owners “says Chari’s Grégoire de Padirac.
According to Ismael Belkhayat, co-founder and CEO of Chari the Orange group’s distribution know-how and skills are extremely beneficial to the company which intends to grow into the nations in which Orange operates.
Chari was founded in 2020 by Ismael Belkhayat and Sophia Alj and was operated under the family-holding business HnS Invest Holding, which supports distribution and logistics start-ups.
The startup aims to change the way small businesses receive their supplies. It provides them with a mobile application that allows them to order all of the products they need at their point of sale with a few clicks and a free delivery commitment in less than 24 hours.
The application has already attracted over 20,000 food businesses in the kingdom’s major cities.
Chari won the Middle East Africa Seed Challenge presented by Orange Ventures in 2021, which included over 500 technical entrepreneurs from Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Jordan.
It also raised $240,000 from Orange Ventures in a Seed round while in 2022,the startup received $1 million from Endeavor Catalyst in its funding round as part of its Series-A round.