• Egypt-based Homzmart, an online furniture and home goods marketplace has raised $15 million in its Series A round led by MSA capital and Nuwa Capital with participation from Rise Capital, Impact46, EQ2 Ventures, and Outliers Ventures.
• Launched in 2020, by Mahmoud Ibrahim, former COO of Daraz, and Ibrahim Mohamed, former head of logistics at Jumia, Homzmart enables retailers like IKEA to connect directly to consumers who are provided with flexible financing options.  
• Homzmart currently has more than 55,000 products listed on its platform and claims its sales have grown 30x over the past year.
• The investment will be used to expand Homzmart’s presence in the region.

Press release:

Homzmart, the Middle East’s leading furniture & home goods marketplace platform, successfully closed its US$15 million Series A financing - the largest round in this sector in the Middle East to date.

The capital raise was led by MSA Capital, a global investment firm with over $1.5 billion in assets under management, and Nuwa Capital. Other participating investors include Rise Capital, Impact46, EQ2 Ventures, and Outliers Ventures.

Hard-launched in Q1 2020, Homzmart was co-founded by Mahmoud Ibrahim, former COO of Daraz, and Ibrahim Mohamed. Ibrahim was formerly at Jumia and led the company’s logistics development and expansion in Egypt. The wider management team includes former senior executives of Jumia, Rocket Internet and Alibaba.

Homzmart has grown sales by over 30x in the last twelve months, and is tapping into the rapidly expanding 14 million customers in the region who search online for furniture each month. The platform showcases over 55,000 products from thousands of brands and merchants.

The industry has been historically characterised by high distribution costs for retailers, and poor accessibility for consumers. Homzmart’s platform and its end-to-solutions enable both retailers – including the likes of IKEA and Home Centre by helping them easily reach customers – and also consumers who have a hassle-free, one-stop-shop shopping experience, with greater choice and flexible financing options.

Homzmart’s easy-to-navigate platform incorporates Artificial Intelligence to optimise furniture sellers’ content, with intelligent tools helping customers with purchasing decisions.

Whilst focused on the regional market opportunity, Homzmart has strategically launched operations in close proximity to Damietta City, Egypt - the region’s largest furniture manufacturing hub. This allows Homzmart to streamline the region’s vertical industry supply chain.

Homzmart’s CEO and co-founder, Mahmoud Ibrahim, said:

“We have seized the opportunity to digitize shopping for furniture and home goods. The market opportunity in the region is huge, and our business model is perfectly set up for it. Homzmart provides an easy one-stop-shop platform to transform the experience for furniture sellers and consumers, and we are very excited about our next stage of growth.

“We are delighted to complete this funding round. It will accelerate our progress to expand regionally and execute our strategy of consolidating the whole value chain. I would like to thank all our investors for their support.”

MSA Capital’s General Partner, Ben Harburg, said:

“The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the extreme vulnerabilities and inefficiencies of the Middle East’s archaic offline retail ecosystem, logistics, and supply chain. Into the void stepped Homzmart as the next generation, digitally enabled online marketplace and optimised logistics provider for large item retail addressing both consumer and enterprise customers. Mahmoud and his team’s executional excellence, born out of deep experience managing ecommerce and fulfilment in challenging conditions with Jumia and Daraz, and guided by Chinese best practices from Alibaba, has resulted in a firm that has rapidly become the dominant online marketplace, fulfilment, and finance facilitator for all merchants and brands in the region.”

Sarah Abu Risheh, Partner at Nuwa Capital, said:

“Homzmart had already carved a solid trajectory for itself early into the pandemic, in an industry that needed an uplift. The way Mahmoud, Ibrahim and their team managed to exponentially and continuously grow the business during a global economic slowdown further demonstrates that it is a truly exceptional company.”