Egypt’s YFS gets $7M

On-demand delivery in the Middle East and North Africa is estimated to reach $47 billion by 2030. In its largest and fastest-growing economy, Egypt, many platforms operate in different segments of e-commerce and logistics while serving businesses and customers.

Today, one of those companies, Yalla Fel Sekka (YFS), whose business involves building a network of dark stores and micro-warehouses across Egypt, has secured a $7 million Series A round.

YFS was founded by Khashayar Mahdavi and Yasmine Abdel Karim in 2020, just before the pandemic struck and customer behaviour shifted toward needing faster deliveries due to pandemic-induced lockdowns.

With increased customer activity, e-commerce companies in North Africa sought to adopt trending models such as quick commerce pioneered by Gopuff, Gorillas, and Flint. But unlike the West, Egypt’s e-commerce infrastructure isn’t ready to accommodate the crazy demand and chaos that quick commerce brings.

It’s one of the reasons Mahdavi and Abdel Karim started YFS. On a call with TechCrunch, the founders said while identifying a critical gap in the regional market: the need for near-instant deliveries, YFS has assembled a distributed network of small mini-warehouses and dark stores, where businesses can store the goods very close to their customers to ensure quick deliveries.