Highest Raise In North Africa? What Is Yassir Doing Different?
The Ecosystem
In 2020, the Algerian government made a decision to support its startup sector by creating the Ministry of knowledge, economy and start-ups for Algeria. This was done to establish regulations that will encourage startup creation in the state, To provide needed financial support and establish structures that can support initiatives.
In 2022, the nation established the Algerian Startup Fund, with $411 million, in financial backing to support startups across the country. This fund will support the activities of startups through investment in various tech-enabled initiatives.
Although the nation’s tech ecosystem has not matured as much as its neighbouring countries, Egypt and Tunisia, it has a few startup success stories. There are many Algerian diaspora startups that have succeeded, but only a few within the nation are scaling, an example is Yassir.
About Yassir
In a country with about 45 million population, and more than 2000 SMEs and startups combined, the competition seems to be a bit fierce. Yet Yassir tends to scale in the market.
Yassir is an on-demand Algerian startup. The startup provides last-mile, ride-hailing, groceries and meal delivery services.
Known as “The Super App” Yassir was co-founded by Noureddine Tayebi and El Mahdi Yettou in 2017. the startup has continually provided citizens with its services, developing a mindset that includes ease and speed within its audience.
According to the startup, it currently operates in 5 counties which include Algeria, Canada, France, Morocco and Tunisia, offering the same service with just a little twitch in the language of communication for specific countries.
The startup also revealed its achievement in onboarding over Two million users on its platform while securing over Forty thousand partnerships with various brands within its location operations.
With over 495 undiluted google reviews by its users, the startup has a 3.9-star rating, characterizing it as more than average within its markets.
Activity So Far
Amongst startups in the North African nation, Yassir has been ranked the 1st due to its activities. The startup is known to target unbanked users, giving them the ability to participate in digital finance activities.
As Jumia is to Nigeria and Kenya, Yassir has been able to take over the e-commerce space in Algeria, likewise possessing a stake in Tunisia and Morocco. The startup continues to make various subsidiary services such as Yassir Express, Food, Chauffeur, Order, and Business, each pulling traction to the platform.
In 2021, Yassir secured a Series A funding round of $ 30 million US dollars which it used to push some of its regional expansion.
Just as it has been scaling in the ecosystem, it has also been pulling the figures in funding. In November 2022, Yassir brought in the largest startup funding figure in North Africa so far. In its latest funding round, Yassir raised a Series B round of $150 million. According to reports “this is highest single investment ever raised by any North African startup”. The round was led by BOND a high-profile venture capitalist, it also had the participation of Stanford Alumni Ventures, Dorsal Capital, Y Combinator via Continuity Fund and Quiet Capital.
In an interview with Techcrunch Yassir’s co-founder, Noureddine Tayebi said “We are 100% local champion, including tech talent, as we want to empower the tech talent in the region and hire them in each country we operate in. We want a success model that is fully from the region.”
The startup has witnessed tremendous growth in the space of 5 years making it a business to reckon with.
We can all agree that many factors contribute to the growth and development of a startup, one of which is its environment. Yassir is founded as the first nation to enact the startup Act. As previously explained Algeria is working towards supporting its startups and tech initiatives within its ecosystem.
If Algeria’s policy is not Yassir’s major scaling factor, it is definitely one of them.