Moroccan Startup WaystoCap raises $3 million in Seed funding from Y Combinator & others

Co-founded by Niama El Bassunie, Anis Abdeddine, Mehdi Daoui, Aziz Jaouhari Tissafi in 2014, WaystoCap is a B2B marketplace for businesses in Africa to buy and sell products. The Casablanca-based startup that graduated form Y Combinator accelerator program earlier this year has just raised an undisclosed investment. TechCrunch reports the investment to be between $2.5-3 million. The investment comes from Y Combinator, Battery Ventures, Soma Capital, Palm Drive Capital, Amino Capital, Endure Capital, Story Ventures, Lynett Capital, Neon Capital, 4DX LLC, Michael Seibel, Jude Gomila & Pascal Levy Garboua.

The platform that started with with one category of food and beverages has now more than ten and has processed $3 million of transactions within the first quarter of 2017 which is more than the transactions it processed in whole 2016. They facilitate the businesses by offering security on both sides. The startup also collaborates with with Coface, an exports insurance company to ensure delivery and has a partnership with an unnamed trade finance specialist which guarantees payment. This specialist also allows buyers using WaystoCap platform to have flexible spending plans to help them manage their finances.

They plan to spend the money from latest investment on developing a new platform to match buyers and sellers more efficiently and expand to West Africa, starting with an office in the small country of Benin which serves as a trade gateway to a lot of landlocked neighboring countries.

“The presence gives us local commerce guarantees and makes us look a lot better on the ground,” said Niama El Bassunie, Co-Founder & CEO of WaystoCap.

Before receiving the funding, she had said in an interview that their plan is to get into English-speaking West African countries and look into the East African market after they raise funding. With an “estimated market size of about $750 billion” and having received this round of investment, WaystoCap seems to have a promising future.