ExpandCart secured $2.7 million in a Pre-Series B bridge round of financing, led by Hong-Kong-based Betatron Venture Group, with participation from existing investors; Sawari Ventures from Egypt, and Agility Ventures from Kuwait.

Founded in 2016, ExpandCart is one of the largest e-commerce platform builders in the MENA region, with customers in over 40 countries and a client base of 25,000 merchants that have managed to achieve over $850 million in GMV through the ExpandCart platform from its current main markets, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, and the UAE.

The new round of funding is set to fuel ExpandCart’s growth in current markets while focusing on maximizing R&D, technology building, and new products to ambitiously enable one million merchants within the next three years across the MENA region, using multiple products such as their new conversational commerce chatbot solution, ExpandBot which enables merchants to interact with their customers faster through conversation-based commerce tools like (Messenger and WhatsApp) without increasing their headcount.

E-commerce growth has been impressive in the Middle East, and we are proud to be one of the leading players to help millions of businesses go online. With this round, we are committed to being more customer-centric than ever, to build top-class operations, and we will continue to focus on creating the most comprehensive suite of products to help our merchants succeed.

Amr Shawqy, Co-founder and CEO ExpandCart

The e-commerce market in the region has been growing at an estimated CAGR of 35% over the last five years. Studies show that there will be a larger acceleration in e-commerce between 2020 and 2022, at 20% CAGR, and a further 14% growth per annum until 2025.

ExpandCart is currently preparing to kick start its new financing round, which will be dedicated to new market expansion, and developing a comprehensive ecosystem of commerce products and solutions that will help the company acquire new segments of merchants with business needs that go beyond just a traditional online store. ExpandCart previously raised $2.5 million in Series A funding in November 2020.