Egyptian taxi-hailing startup Ousta has raised a US$1.25 million bridge investment round, which will be used to grow its team and accelerate its growth.
Uber competitor Ousta only launched five months ago, but has now secured funding from a group of angels and venture capitalists from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Ousta, now operating in 11 cities, claims to have a 30 per cent weekly growth rate, with co-founder and chairman Nader El-Batrawi saying this bridge investment round will be followed by another sizeable round in the near future.
“We are proud to be a local company founded by Egyptians, with a main focus to have a strong and recognisable presence in our home country before expanding to any other country,” El-Batrawi said.
Omar Salah, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Ousta, said the funding will be used to develop the team and increase Ousta’s availability across Egypt.
“We passion the shared economy business model, because it fundamentally helps the cities we work in by creating thousands of jobs for both genders, improving household incomes, optimizing personal transportation, saving customers’ precious time, and also decreasing carbon emissions, which improves our air quality,” he said.
“Our main goal is not just to build a strong and profitable business, but to participate in building better economy and environment.”
Nancy Farag is CEO of Axia Capital, the buy-side advisor to investing VCs. She said she believes in Ousta’s vision, work ethic and ability on execution.
“The Ousta application is built with solid and stable infrastructure with a great user experience interface. Noteworthy, the on-demand industry is no doubt the future of not just personal transportation, but will bring more great services to Egypt and soon the region,” she said.
“This bridge finance will be used mainly to maintain its business, while discussing the potential of another significant round of capital increase.”
