Yassir of Algeria receives $30 million to develop a super app for North Africa
Yassir of Algeria receives $30 million to develop a super app for North Africa
An Algerian startup that provides on-demand services such as ride hailing and last-mile delivery has raised $30 million in a Series A round of funding.
A slew of venture capitalists and angel investors contributed to the funding of the project. Many venture capital firms have made investments in the company, including WndrCo, DN Capital, Kismet Capital, Spike Ventures, Quiet Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, FJ Labs, VentureSouq, Nellore Capital, and Moving Capital, among others. Among the angel investors are Cleo Sham of Uber, Thomas Layton of Upwork, Opentable, and Metaweb, Rohan Monga of Gojek, and Hannes Graah of Spotify and Revolut, as well as other well-known entrepreneurs.
Among those who participated were the majority of investors from the previously undisclosed $13.25 million seed round, according to a company statement.
The CEO of a startup in Algeria, Noureddine Tayebi, earned his Ph.D. from Stanford and worked at a variety of companies in Silicon Valley before returning to Algeria to participate in the country's fledgling tech scene, launching a company and developing technical talent in the Maghreb region (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia).
The majority of people in French-speaking Africa do not have access to financial services, owing to a lack of trust in incumbents and inefficient banking solutions. In Tayebi's opinion, providing on-demand services — which meet basic needs while also establishing trust in order to provide payment services — was the catalyst for regional financial inclusion because it allowed for the provision of payment services.
In 2017, he joined forces with Mahdi Yettou to form Yassir. Because of the dense populations and inefficient public transportation systems in the cities that the company targeted, the company began with ride-hailing services. Last-mile delivery services were added as part of Yassir's expansion, which resulted in the creation of a multi-sided marketplace that connects drivers, couriers, merchants, suppliers, and wholesalers with individual customers.
According to Tayebi, the idea is to leverage the marketplace model in order to provide payment services to all parties involved, resulting in the creation of a super application.
Our approach to solving the unbanked population problem in the region is unique in that we provide more of a 'banking as a platform' solution with daily services at its core through a super-app marketplace, he told TechCrunch.
In addition to fostering trust among all stakeholders in the marketplace, such services also serve as channels for the provision of these payment services, which we believe is the most appropriate approach for the region. Unlike us, the vast majority of our competitors provide on-demand services such as ride hailing or last-mile delivery, or they are purely payment-based businesses. The advantage we have over them comes from the fact that we are putting together the infrastructure, distribution channels, and trust that will be required for widespread adoption of payment services."
Because of this, Yassir has experienced exponential growth since its inception four years ago. In the winter batch of Y Combinator last year, it became the accelerator's first Algerian startup, making it the first in the world to do so. In terms of user numbers, the platform now has more than 3 million users and 40,000 partners across all of its markets, according to the company. It is claimed that Yassir generates revenue by charging a commission on the services it provides.
Following this round of funding, Yassir is now the most funded startup in Algeria, as well as one of the most funded startups in the Maghreb and the MENA region. Tayebi is unapologetically honest in stating that his company's ultimate goal is to achieve regional dominance in its industry. Apart from that, Yassir plans to broaden his market reach beyond the region, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa and other "strategic geographies."
By introducing new products and making improvements to existing ones, the investment will be used to achieve that goal as well as to consolidate growth in already-established markets.
Additionally, Yassir intends to more than double the size of its engineering team, which is another department that the company is committed to developing in the country.
According to Tayebi, "We are a 100 percent local champion," which includes "local tech talent," because "we want to empower and hire local tech talent in each country where we operate," and "we want a model of success that is entirely indigenous to the region."
Anthony Saleh, a partner at WndrCo, said in a statement that Yassir is "a natural evolution of businesses seen around the world." In the first few minutes of meeting with the team, we recognized an opportunity to enter a massive market with a service that leveraged the best models we'd seen elsewhere. The opportunity to be a part of this turbocharged adventure excites us to no end."
