Egyptian B2B trucking marketplace Trella has secured a further significant debt facility from ALMA Sustainable Finance (ALMA) and the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to support the growth of its operations.
Founded in 2018, Trella is a B2B technology platform and trucking marketplace connecting shippers with carriers in real-time. Active across the Middle East and Pakistan, the startup has more than 350 shipper partners including blue-chip brands such as Coca-Cola, Maersk, Mondi, Henkel, Amazon, and DHL. It also has over 30,000 carrier partners.
Disrupt Africa reported in June last year Trella had completed a US$42 million Series A funding round, comprising US$30 million in equity and US$12 million in debt facilities, to help it expand, and last month it followed that up with further, undisclosed, debt capital from Contact Financial Holding.
ALMA’s debt financing, backed by the DFC guaranty, will support expansion of Trella’s platform for MSME truckers in lower-middle income countries Egypt and Pakistan, where MSMEs provide the bulk of employment but face operational challenges. The project will also benefit from technical assistance provided by both USAID/Pakistan and USAID/Egypt.
“We are very pleased to have the support of DFC to be able to extend more capital to high-growth digital businesses such as Trella,” said Gautam Ivatury, managing partner at ALMA Sustainable Finance. “As debt lenders, we want to extend more financing in lower middle income countries such as Pakistan and Egypt, and having the DFC guaranty facility allows us to reach more companies in these regions and have broader development impacts.”
“Trella’s operations will benefit greatly from the additional debt financing extended by ALMA with the support of the DFC guaranty,” said Omar Hagrass, CEO of Trella. “In an industry like ours, we need new sources of capital to maintain our high-growth trajectory and reach the thousands of truckers across the region who need support to access more shipments, faster payments, and other integral services.”
