Antananarivo, 10 december 2021

The AXIAN Group has invested in MaxAB, an emerging tech company in Egypt that is readily disrupting food distribution in one of Africa’s largest economies. This investment will help unlock new value for MaxAB as they bring digital inclusion to traditional small-scale retailers that are heavily relied upon by Egyptians across the country.

DIRECTLY SUPPORTING INNOVATION

AXIAN’s investment in MAxAB typifies its strategy of investing for impact. The company has built a digital distribution platform that was built-to-purpose to shorten and bring transparency to the supply chain for Egypt’s informal small-scale merchants, who account for a large portion of the country’s economic activity. However, these same businesses often face long, drawn-out procurement procedures that involve several intermediaries, which in turn brings added costs. MaxAB solves this by using tech-enabled streamlining to bring price visibility and an all-inclusive procurement and distribution solutions suite to over 33,000 merchants across Egypt, including those in more isolated communities. AXIAN’s investment will allow MaxAB to continue to scale its business and facilitate supply for merchants across, and potentially beyond Egypt.

MaxAB was founded in November 2018 by entrepreneurs Mohamed Ben Halim and Belal El-Megharbel, who have built an innovative digital, B-to-B food-and-beverage distribution platform to make modern supply-chain management accessible to traditional food and grocery retailers in Egypt. It primarily facilitates procurement and delivery, with each shop able to purchase goods, request delivery or logistics to move them—along with a dedicated customer-support team. Within a year, the company already had 9,000 merchants on its app and closed its first seed-round of financing.

A SHARED COMMITMENT TO INCLUSIVE SERVICES

MaxAB and AXIAN’s shared commitment to digital inclusion is evident in both of their achievements. Directly backing an innovative company that facilitates food and beverage retail in one of Africa’s most populous markets—over half of which still resides in rural areas—demonstrates AXIAN’s commitment to helping improve people’s day-to-day lives as well as its own mandate to bring wider access to products and services that augment their quality of life. MaxAB will not only seek to bring the tangible benefits of its procurement and logistics solutions to more merchants, but will also continue to bring products and services that drive mutual, shared value creation.

AXIAN’s drive to bring inclusive growth to isolated areas and rural communities that make up a large part of Africa’s demographic landscape is already apparent in several projects of its energy cluster, Let’s Renew Energy, whose subsidiary WeLight installs self-sufficient power-production equipment in remote villages across Madagascar to give them access to electricity. MaxAB currently operates in Egypt’s consumer-products market that currently worth over 200 billlion USD per year, much of which is driven by the small-scale businesses MaxAB is simplifying supply-chain management for. AXIAN’s commitment to MaxAB will bolster inclusive growth that benefits all, and bring about expanded access to products for many communities via the small-scale business that they turn to for food and beverages in Egypt.

ABOUT AXIAN

AXIAN is a pan-African group that specialises in 5 sectors of industry with high growth potential—namely telecoms, financial services, real estate, energy and innovation. AXIAN operates directly in 7 countries across the Indian Ocean and the African mainland, acting as an engaged partner in their social and economic growth.

With its 5,000 daring and passionate staff, the group ensures that all of its operations operations systematically have a positive and sustainable impact on the day-to-day lives of Africans.

The AXIAN Group is a signatory of the UN Global Compact and is committed to championing its 10 Sustainable-Development Goals across all present and future developments.

Find out more at www.axian-group.com

ABOUT MAXAB

MaxAB is rethinking the food and spice markets by leveraging adapted, supply-chain-specific and data-driven technology solutions. Shortening the supply chain through the MaxAB platforms allows the company to offer more competitive prices, and also allows retailers to better manage their product supply and their business.

MaxAB now has over 22,000 unique users, all of which are retailers of all sizes in both rural and urban areas. MaxAB is committed to developing and improving its services for the benefit of the community.

Read the press release