Moroccan startup Vendo.ma, a search engine for products and offers, is set to roll out its monetisation strategy having seen strong uptake and raised a funding round.
Vendo.ma allows users to search a database of more than 200,000 products from more than 100 popular e-commerce websites and physical shops.
The startup’s algorithm easily identifies the user’s needs, and gives them the ability to refine their search by adding tags to their searches, set a maximum or minimum price, and locate shops on an interactive map.
“The idea has long been in the co-founders’ minds and saw the light in July 2014, after they saw a need for such product to exist, especially after an exceptional rise in the e-commerce business in Morocco,” said Rezki El Mokaddam, growth marketer at Vendo.ma.
“They later thought of a way to group virtually every e-commerce website in Morocco in one single place, giving the possibility to Vendo.ma’s users to search among the websites, shops and products easily and efficiently.”
El Mokaddam said the startup was filling a gap by providing an intuitive, yet simple solution to group offers and products in one single place.
Users seem to agree, with Vendo.ma attracting around 100,000 users each month currently, a number El Mokaddam said is growing. The startup also recently closed a MAD2.7 million (US$265,000) seed round from an angel investor in the United Kingdom (UK).
With all this now in place, Vendo.ma is pushing forward with its monetisation strategy.
“We are planning on launching a CPC advertising platform, giving our partners the possibility to create AdWords-like ads, by featuring products and bidding on CPC or CPM,” El Mokaddam said.
“We are currently solely focusing on the Moroccan market. We have plans to expand to the whole MENA region.”
