• Chari, a Morocco-based B2B e-commerce startup with an embedded financing for the FMCG sector, has raised $1 million from Orange Ventures.
• As per the transaction, Grégoire de Padirac, partner of Orange Ventures Middle East and Africa, is set to join Chari’s supervisory board.
• Founded in 2020 by Ismael Belkhayat and Sophia Alj, Chari lets retailers purchase large quantities of inventory items directly from suppliers. 
• The platform has onboarded over 20,000 food businesses in Morocco.

Source: Afrikanheroes

Orange Ventures, Orange’s venture capital investment arm, has invested $1 million in Chari’s most recent round of fundraising. On this occasion, Grégoire de Padirac, Partner of Orange Ventures Middle East & Africa, joins Chari’s Supervisory Board.

“We are delighted to have been among the first investors in the Chari adventure, and we look forward to continuing to support the team as it expands into the French-speaking region and the fintech sector. We and Chari believe in the need of digitising local company owners “says Chari’s Grégoire de Padirac.

As a reminder, Chari won the Middle East Africa Seed Challenge presented by Orange Ventures in 2021, which included over 500 technical entrepreneurs from Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Jordan.

“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 “According to Ismael Belkhayat, co-founder and CEO of Chari.

Chari was created in January 2020 by Ismael Belkhayat and Sophia Alj and was advanced under the family-holding business HnS Invest Holding, which supports distribution and logistics start-ups. Chari wants to change the way small businesses receive their supplies. It provides them with a mobile application that allows them to order all of the products they need at their point of sale with a few clicks and a free delivery commitment in less than 24 hours. The application has already attracted over 20,000 food businesses in the kingdom’s major cities.