Moroccan B2B e-commerce startup Chari has secured USD 1.5 mn in a pre-series A funding round led by Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (VKAV) to support its growth plans, CEO Ismail Belkhayat told Enterprise Logistics. Orange Ventures and Endeavor Catalyst also participated in the round, Ismael Belkhayat, CEO of Chari, told us. Chari will leverage VKAV’s extensive African network and its ties with Japanese businesses as it looks to expand its market share and add additional revenue streams, including embedded fintech, Belkhayat said in the press release.

Where the funds are going: Chari aims to start offering open loop digital wallets to shopkeepers so they can start paying with and accepting digital payments, Belkhayat told Enterprise Logistics. “We would like to turn the shopkeepers into value-added financial services point of sales,” he added. The additional funding will also be used to enhance Chari’s tech team, recruit fintech experts and to market Chari’s new fintech services, he told us.

It’s also getting a strategic advisor: VKAV Partner Ryosuke (Rio) Yamawaki will join Chari as a strategic advisor, according to the statement. Yamawaki will join the startup’s board, Disrupt Africa reports. “[Rio] has seen hundreds of successful use cases around the continent,” he said, adding that “whatever happens today in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa will end up coming to Morocco in the coming few years.”

About Chari: The e-commerce app was founded by Ismael and Sophia Belkhayat in 2020. It supports small retailers in French-speaking Africa by facilitating inventory procurement, offering a regular supply of products, delivery and financing services, according to its website. The company has already onboarded over 20k food businesses in Morocco, according to Disrupt Africa, and expanded into Tunisia and Ivory Coast, with its acquisition of Ivorian app Diago in 2022. “Senegal could be an option” for future expansion, Belkhayat told us.

Previous funding: Chari, a Y Combinator S21 participant, raised USD 5 mn in funding through a seed round in late 2021, followed by an additional investment of USD 1 mn from Orange Ventures in February and follow-on funding from Plug and Play.

About VKAV: The VC firm is a joint venture between Japanese VC Kepple Africa Ventures (KAV) and Verod Holdings (Verod), an African growth capital private equity firm. The firm, led by Satoshi Shinada, Ryosuke Yamawaki, and Ory Okolloh, disclosed in March that it secured USD 43 mn for its pan-African venture fund, which invests in scalable, tech-enabled, post-revenue startups addressing difficult challenges across Africa, according to Disrupt Africa.

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