Orange Ventures led $1 M secured by Moroccan B2B e-commerce startup Chari
In its most recent round of investment, Chari, a B2B e-commerce business with embedded finance for the FMCG industry, secured US $1 million from Orange Ventures.
Ismael and Sophia Belkhayat, a husband-and-wife partnership, founded Chari in 2020 to make it possible for Moroccan proximity business owners to purchase things and have them delivered. Over 20,000 food enterprises have joined the network in Morocco, and it has already spread to Tunisia and the Ivory Coast.
The startup, which was a part of the Y Combinator S21 cohort, obtained a US $5 million seed round in late 2021 and added to its funding in January of the following year. Orange Ventures, Orange’s venture capital investment arm, a prior investor in the business, has now contributed an extra US $1 million to the fund.
“Being supported by Orange Ventures since the beginning of our quest is a source of pride for us. The Orange group’s distribution know-how and skills are extremely beneficial to us. We intend to grow into the nations in which Orange operates,” said Ismael Belkhayat, co-founder and CEO of Chari.
The supervisory board of Chari will now include Grégoire de Padirac, a partner of Orange Ventures Middle East and Africa.
“We are delighted to have been among the first investors in the Chari adventure. We look forward to continuing to support the team as it expands into the French-speaking region and the FinTech sector. Chari and we believe in the need to digitize local company owners,” de Padirac said.
