Egyptian e-Commerce Wasla Gets $9 Million Investment From Contact Financial Holding

E-commerce super app Wasla which is based in Egypt has received an investment of $9 million from Contact Financial Holding, the country’s consumer finance provider. This investment will catalyse Wasla’s launching of new products, new online shopping capabilities as well as fuel its expansion plans.

Wasla came into the picture in 2018 and was founded by Serag Meneassy, Taymour Sabry and Mahmoud El-Said. Thanks to the new investment from Contact, the company is set to launch a range of products and e-commerce related options that’ll include the fast-growing buy-now-pay-later credit option and a new online payment option.

Contact, which has been in the business of consumer finance for over a decade spoke about its investment in Wasla. “It’s an equity investment, through a series of investments that aim to grow the business going forward, to enable their business plan and their achievement of the company’s vision”, Contact Financial Holding chairman Hazem Moussa said.

Wasla basically operates through its web browser. It provides various exciting features such as a deal finder that aggregated discount codes and cashback links across a network of merchants. As part of its efforts at getting better, Wasla will be including a price comparison tool to gear up users’ experiences.

Speaking on the imminent functionalities coming to Wasla, CEO Mahmoud El-Said said that “In the checkout phase, we plan to introduce a very secure payment method…limited by time or value. And the final step is integrating financing or buy-now-pay-later solutions directly within that. It is an end-to-end e-commerce experience starting from search and discovery to financing”…

These new additions are being included to promote and encourage shoppers to make payments online as offline payment can be costly for merchants.

As part of its investment in Wasla, Contact will be bringing in its consumer finance and technology which covers its advanced credit services platform. This will help Wasla unlock its potential and take on new heights.

“With the whole experience being on the Wasla browser, you have a lot more access to customer behaviour and customer interests and therefore be able to really tailor the programs to the user base and so that is really a big addition to the experience– from the start the journey to the payments to the financing”, Contact Financial Holding chairman Hazem Moussa said.

Wasla, which aggregates deals for a network of over 100 (both local and regional) e-commerce merchants, currently boasts of 1.5 million downloads and issued YoY growth of x8.5 in total e-commerce traffic since it started operations.

Wasla is already working on entering Nigeria, Africa’s most populated country. “It’s a huge market at the end of the day, you have roughly 250 million people. They’re very technologically advanced, and their adoption of e-commerce is quite good. It’s quite the right market. There’s all the infrastructure that you kind of need to set up a proper tech business. In terms of maturity within the tech ecosystem, Nigeria is probably one of the best markets in Africa, competing directly with Egypt, South Africa and a couple of others”, Wasla’s CEO said.