Fincart, an Egyptian startup building an AI-powered operating system for e-commerce merchants, has raised a $2.8 million seed round to expand across Africa and the Middle East after pivoting beyond logistics software into merchant finance and business automation.

Launch Africa, a pan-African venture capital fund, and Antler MENAP, the early-stage fund focused on the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan regions, co-led the funding round, with participation from Yango Ventures, Five35 Ventures, Bluestream Capital, Hi2 Global, Kalahari Venture Labs, and other unnamed investors.

The raise comes 18 months after Fincart’s undisclosed pre-seed round and coincides with the startup’s pivot from a logistics management platform into an AI-powered operating system for e-commerce merchants. Egypt’s e-commerce market is projected to grow to $20.15 billion by 2031, underscoring why software and financial infrastructure aimed at merchants has become a competitive area for startups in the country.

Fincart said it will use the funding to scale its commercial and tech teams, invest in product development, and forge new commercial partnerships to strengthen its position in its home market.

“With our strategy focused on strengthening the e-commerce ecosystem, this investment will enable us to deepen our partnerships, enhance our AI-powered platform, expand our infrastructure, and accelerate our growth across Africa and the Middle East,” said Mostafa Masry, Fincart’s co-founder and chief executive officer.

Founded in 2023 by Masry and Nihal Ali, Fincart began by helping online merchants manage last-mile deliveries and reconcile cash-on-delivery payments. Over time, the company has expanded into a merchant operating system that combines logistics management, embedded financing and AI-powered customer engagement. It noted that merchants on the platform can connect to more than 40 shipping providers and access short-term cash advances.

According to Masry, the pivot was driven by merchants’ reliance on a wide range of software to manage shipping, customer support, marketing, and payments. That fragmentation, he said, left valuable business data siloed across systems, making it harder for merchants to automate operations. Fincart’s response was to consolidate those functions into a single AI-powered platform.

“Everything we build starts with sitting down with merchants and understanding where they’re losing time, money, or customers,” said Ali. “We built Fincart to replace all of that with a single control panel where merchants can sell more, deliver faster, and manage their customers, without the friction of stitching tools together.”

Fincart operates in a market where regional players such as MaxAB-Wasoko and global commerce platforms like Shopify provide merchant services to e-commerce businesses. The company said it has onboarded more than 450 merchants and enterprise customers and has processed nearly EGP 1 billion (nearly $20 million) in merchandise value through automated shipping and cash reconciliation workflows.

Fincart generates revenue from shipping fees and tiered software subscriptions that range from EGP 1,584 ($31.2) to EGP 7,199 ($141.96) monthly, depending on the features merchants use. The company said part of the funding will support its expansion beyond Egypt starting in 2027.

For Launch Africa, the investment is a bet on the region’s commerce infrastructure rather than on a single startup.

“Egypt’s e-commerce market is one of Africa’s most compelling infrastructure opportunities: high volume, CoD-dominant, and deeply underserved at the SME level,” said Lina Kacyem, investment manager at Launch Africa. “The organic, referral-driven growth tells you everything about product-market fit, and we’re excited to support Fincart’s expansion across Egypt and into new African markets as co-lead investors in this round.”