Egyptian home services marketplace Filkhedma is contemplating expansion beyond its Cairo base on the back of a five-fold increase in volumes over the course of this year.
Launched in 2014 and currently serving Cairo, FilKhedma is an online marketplace for home maintenance and improvement services such as plumbing, carpentry, electricity, air conditioning, painting and appliances.
The startup’s platform enables users to book home services, receive an exact time slot, get a quality guarantee and approve a price quotation before receiving one of its background-checked technicians. On the other side of the marketplace, it onboards technicians after testing their technical and customer service skills.
Founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Omar Ramadan told Disrupt Africa the platform had grown its volumes by a factor of five and was targeting similar or even bigger growth in 2019 once it concluded its Series A round. Filkhedma raised seed funding last year, and is now in the process of securing further investment. Geographic expansion is also a possibility.
“We will start servicing new verticals in Cairo in 2019 and perhaps expand to Alexandria. Our focus in the next two years will still remain Egypt,” Ramadan said.
Filkhedma, which charges a commission on every service performed by technicians, initially began life as a service provider hiring full time technicians, but by the start of this year had completely changed its model to become a marketplace.
“There is a huge problem with home services in Egypt as the market is completely fragmented, with very few if any trusted service providers or platforms,” Ramadan said.
