Wasla, an Egyptian browser-based shopping platform, has received a US $9 million investment from Contact Financial Holding to help with product development and regional expansion.
Wasla is the first developing markets mobile web browser and desktop addon optimised for online shopping, founded in 2019 by Mahmoud El Said, Serag Meneassy, and Taymour Sabry. The company assists people in saving money online by aggregating offers, discounts, and cashbacks from over 100 local and regional e-commerce businesses.
The firm has racked up 1.5 million app downloads and seen an 8.5x increase in overall e-commerce traffic year over year, as well as a new agreement to expand its services across Africa.
Wasla has received funding from Contact Financial Holding, Egypt’s largest non-bank financial services provider, as part of its Series A round to assist support this development. Contact will spend up to $9 million in Wasla’s product rollout and regional development as part of the partnership, with the goal of realising Wasla’s purpose of enabling e-commerce, payments, and credit for wide audiences in emerging economies.
Contact, Egypt’s largest consumer financing platform, has been changing people’s financial lives since 2001. Contact is the first financial services platform in Egypt to integrate innovative credit scoring and collection processes, allowing Contact to engage consumers from the start of their e-commerce journey while they explore, discover, and buy.
Through its numerous tools and a new suite of financial services capabilities, including online payments and “buy now pay later,” the two firms will work together to realise the objective of further increasing e-commerce growth in emerging economies. Wasla, which will operate as an extension of Contact’s main business, will help the company to expand into new market sectors and attract new user groups.
“Having personally worked with the Contact team before, I was always amazed at what they have been able to build as a leading consumer finance platform in the region. This is why we believe this deep partnership, leveraging Contact’s market position, experience, and fully digitized loan origination process, will allow us to expand our offering catering to the online shopping experience by introducing completely new ways to help consumers save money on each online purchase, pay securely, build their credit profiles, and borrow flexibly,” said Mahmoud El Said, CEO of Wasla.
Hazem Moussa, chairman of Contact Financial, expressed his delight at the opportunity to assist the Wasla team in realising their vision of a digital environment that allows everyone to purchase online.
“With over 20 years of innovation in consumer financial services, this strategic investment demonstrates Contact’s drive to multiply its reach and empower businesses with its advanced credit services platform,” he said.
