Sylndr, with a fresh $15.7M, allows users to buy, sell, finance, and service used cars in Egypt

Cairo-based Sylndr has raised $15.7 million because it expands past on-line used automotive gross sales into auto financing, servicing, and instruments for sellers. Growth Companions Worldwide’s Nclude Fund led the spherical.

The corporate, which operates in Egypt’s fast-growing however underdigitized automobile market, mentioned the newest spherical contains each recent fairness and beforehand unannounced seed financing.

Sylndr additionally raised practically $10 million in debt financing from native banks prior to now yr, bringing its whole raised since launch to over $30 million. The corporate raised a $12.6 million pre-seed spherical in 2022, the most important of its form in Africa. 

Omar El Defrawy, former government at a neighborhood meals discovery platform, Elmenus, based the used-car platform in 2021 and initially centered on shopping for used vehicles instantly from shoppers, refurbishing them, and reselling them with a guaranty and money-back assure.

It has since advanced right into a broader mobility platform, providing digital auto loans, automotive servicing, and a market for third-party sellers.

“After we began the enterprise, we have been primarily centered on a client drawback associated to purchasing and promoting vehicles,” mentioned El Defrawy, Sylndr’s CEO, in an interview with TechCrunch. “And once we began to scale that enterprise, it turned very clear to us that the market is far greater than that, and creating worth to clients would require us to construct different compelling companies that combine with what we’re doing.”

Egypt has over 6 million vehicles on the street, with demand for used vehicles rising amid foreign money devaluation and rising costs for brand new imports. In 2021, the federal government banned used-car imports, forcing the market to rely completely on home stock, driving costs to reflect the alternate price.

In consequence, used vehicles in Egypt, whereas outnumbering new automobiles by 3:1, are primarily bought by way of unregulated dealerships or categorised web sites, the place casual transactions depart patrons carrying many of the danger.

Sylndr sees alternative in that mess, which it estimates as a $10 billion market by formalizing processes round inspections, standardized pricing, digital financing, and securing possession transfers. 

The typical sale worth on Sylndr’s platform is between $20,000 and $25,000, El Defrawy mentioned. He defined that the quantity has remained secure in greenback phrases over the past three years, regardless of the Egyptian pound shedding greater than half its worth. It is because used-car costs in Egypt are marketed equally to imported new vehicles, that are dollar-pegged.

Sylndr declined to share income or transaction quantity however mentioned gross sales have elevated practically tenfold since 2022. Income in Egyptian kilos elevated 22 instances throughout that interval, and by an element of 5 when adjusted for the greenback, the CEO claimed.

Digitizing Egypt’s automotive market

Sylndr’s enlargement past automotive gross sales to a few new verticals is to cut back its dependence on stock and capital.

There’s Sylndr Swift, a digital automotive financing product that connects patrons with banks and underwriters. The platform gives financing approvals in below 10 minutes, in keeping with El Defrawy. Sylndr doesn’t lend from its personal stability sheet, he added. 

Along with Swift, Sylndr lately launched Sylndr Plus, which provides inspections, upkeep, and servicing for vehicles bought on its platform. The third vertical, Al-Ajans, is a dealer-to-consumer market that enables third-party sellers to listing and promote vehicles with Sylndr dealing with inspection, possession switch, and funds.

Every vertical runs below its personal model title, however Sylndr has built-in all of them right into a single cellular app — making a one-stop store for purchasing, financing, and managing automotive possession. “We’ve absolutely built-in these companies to assist clients purchase, promote, finance, lease, and repair their vehicles — and to assist sellers function extra effectively and go digital,” mentioned El Defrawy, who’s a former funding banker.

The corporate’s income is now evenly break up between direct-to-consumer gross sales and B2B transactions with sellers, he added. Nonetheless, he expects that the newer financing and servicing verticals will contribute as much as 60% of gross revenue inside two years.

Sylndr at present works with greater than 1,000 sellers nationwide and serves each patrons and sellers by way of its on-line and offline channels. Whereas different regional gamers similar to Contactcars, OLX, and Nigeria-based Autochek, which made inroads into Egypt with AutoTager in 2023, have related choices, El Defrawy says he doesn’t see them as shut competitors when it comes to offering an end-to-end resolution for patrons and sellers throughout the worth chain.

Sylndr’s infrastructure of inspection, refurbishment, and financial institution partnerships makes it tough for out of doors gamers to duplicate its mannequin, he says.

As such, not like different startups in Egypt which have historically used their house market as a springboard to the Gulf, Sylndr plans to deepen its presence in Egypt, the place the CEO asserts it’s “the most important used automotive buying and selling firm by quantity and worth.”

“Sylndr is constructing the digital spine of mobility in a market the place entry, belief, and financing have lengthy been limitations to possession. Their built-in mannequin brings collectively commerce, credit score, and know-how to basically enhance how Egyptians purchase and promote vehicles,” mentioned Ashley Lewis, managing accomplice at DPI Enterprise Capital.

This marks the third deal introduced by the lately launched London-based VC agency prior to now month, following investments in Egypt’s digital financial savings and credit score platform MoneyFellows and proptech startup Nawy.

Different VC corporations, together with Algebra Ventures, Nuwa Capital, Raed Ventures, Egyptian Gulf Holding, Uncovered Fund, Beltone Enterprise Capital, and Camel Ventures, participated within the spherical.