Egyptian startup Muqbis, an online marketplace for handicrafts, has raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-seed funding round from Nama Ventures.
Launched in 2021 by Iman El Wasifi, Mohamed Nasser and Kareem Hussein, Muqbis is an e-commerce platform for the Egyptian handicrafts market. A multi-vendor store model tailored to serve handcrafters, the platform helps its users to sell their products and scale their businesses.
It has now raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding in order to help it scale as it moves out of its MVP phase.
“We are super excited to be one of Nama’s Portfolio companies in our first round. Nama is an extraordinary VC that showed a strong belief in what we do and aim to deliver,” said El Wasifi. “Even before we signed the final agreement for the investment, they bridged all possible ways to support our business growth through recommendations and business matchmaking.”
Mohammed Alzubi, founder and managing partner of Nama Venturers, said his company had wanted to make a bet on the “Etsy of MENA” for a while now.
“The opportunities are massive and our region enjoys a great deal of artists and talented craftsmen that need the right medium to monetise their craft. Yet we were always challenged in finding the right complementary team to go after the opportunity,” he said.
“Well the wait is over, Iman, Mohamed and Karim are the definition of a complementary team with the right role clarity to tackle this exciting challenge. We are simply honoured and privileged that the super talented Muqbis team has chosen Nama Ventures as their funding partner, and we look forward to return the favour in providing the value add that we promised with our investment.”
