Egyptian “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) startup Sympl has raised a US$6 million seed round to support its nationwide expansion and reach the country’s 49 million bank card holders.
Founded by Yasmine Henna, Mohamed El-Feky and Karim Tawfik, Sympl launched its checkout platform in October via an exclusive partnership with leading Apple reseller Tradeline on the release of the new iPhone 13.
Since then it has established partnerships with many other key retailers across various sectors, empowering merchants to sell products and services directly to bank card holders on short-term, interest-free repayment plans.
The US$6 million seed round was led by BECO Capital, with participation from A15 (Disrupt Africa reported separately on that investment in November) and Global Ventures. Sympl will use the capital to accelerate the growth of its merchant network to serve multiple product and service categories across online and in-store merchants, as well as improving the product offering to better serve the platform customers. Sympl is already accepted at more than 240 retail and online stores in Egypt, and the startup plans to reach 1,000 stores by the middle of next year.
“It’s a moment of pride for all of Sympl’s team to see the market traction on the Sympl platform and to be supported by the strongest VCs in the region in our early launch stage,” said Mohamed El-Feky, co-founder and CEO of Sympl.
“The huge market opportunity is evidenced by this capital raise, and the support of BECO Capital, A15, and Global Ventures – who recognise Sympl’s ability to scale and disrupt Egypt’s deferred payments industry, and the size of the market opportunity. We’re proud to have three of the leading MENA VC firms as our partners, and look forward to use this capital to fuel our expansion and meet the booming demand for pay later options in Egypt.”
Yousef Hammad, managing partner at BECO, said his firm was excited to partner with the Sympl team on its mission to close the gap in consumer access to pay later options in Egypt.
“We have been excited about the space for some time, and the team’s deep operational expertise complemented with Sympl’s unique approach makes this partnership a great fit for BECO,” he said.
