The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and ALMA Sustainable Finance (ALMA) have both provided a sizable lending facility to the Egyptian B2B trucking platform Trella to assist in the expansion of its business.
Founded in 2018, Trella is a transportation marketplace and business-to-business technology platform that connects shippers and carriers in real time. With more than 350 shipper partners, including household names like Coca-Cola, Maersk, Mondi, Henkel, Amazon, and DHL, the firm is active throughout the Middle East and Pakistan. It has more than 30,000 carrier partners as well.
In lower-middle-income nations like Pakistan and Egypt, where MSMEs account for the majority of jobs but suffer operational difficulties, ALMA’s loan financing, backed by the DFC guarantee, will enable the growth of Trella’s platform for MSME truckers.
“We are very pleased to have the support of DFC to be able to extend more capital to high-growth digital businesses such as Trella,” said Gautam Ivatury, managing partner at ALMA Sustainable Finance. “As debt lenders, we want to extend more financing in lower-middle-income countries such as Pakistan and Egypt, and having the DFC guaranty facility allows us to reach more companies in these regions and have broader development impacts.”
“Trella’s operations will benefit greatly from the additional debt financing extended by ALMA with the support of the DFC guaranty,” said Omar Hagrass, CEO of Trella. “In an industry like ours, we need new sources of capital to maintain our high-growth trajectory and reach the thousands of truckers across the region who need support to access more shipments, faster payments, and other integral services.”
