The Fashion Kingdom, Egypt’s e-Commerce Startup, Secures $2.6M Seed Round to Scale
The Fashion Kingdom (TFK), an Egyptian e-commerce marketplace for curated fashion, beauty, and home accessories items, has secured $2.6 million in CVentures, a corporate venture capital firm based in Egypt, and A15, an early-stage VC in the MENA region-led the seed funding round. Existing and new investors who also participated in the round include Lotus Capital, Raba Capital, Sunny Side Venture Partners, Foundation Ventures, and The Cairo Angels, according to TFK.
Fadi Antaki, co-founder and CEO of TFK, founded the company in January 2020 with Marianne Simaika and Karim Abd El Kader said, “TFK is a curated marketplace much needed by the rapidly growing fashion e-commerce world. Our market opportunity is vast, and the drivers underpinning it – are compelling. We have grown by more than 3.3x in the last year, and the online customer groups we cater to, are only growing larger. Our competitive differentiators, plus access to our investors’ wealth of knowledge and regional expertise, position us perfectly to become the market leader in Egypt and beyond.”
The startup also says in a statement, that it will use the funds to accelerate growth, build scalable technology, and grow its team, which includes 43 percent female employees and 50 percent managers. “We intend to fill talent gaps, build our technology, optimize our operations, and improve the end-customer experience.” So, basically, the funds will be invested in technology, talent, and operations,” the CEO explained.
What TKF Does
The Fashion Kingdom sells a variety of products to various demographics, including shoes, beauty products, personal care, accessories, and home fashion. The platform assists local and international brands in increasing their online sales through their curated marketplace, which provides customers with an omnichannel experience: a place where shoppers can find all of their fashion needs and exchange products as needed.
The TFK platform currently hosts over 200 brands, with monthly growth of 10-15%. It has over 150,000 customers, with returning customers accounting for roughly 40% of monthly sales.
TFK provides a virtual fitting room that helps brands get accustomed to their customers’ sizes and recommend outfits to customers for different occasions. Also, its “360-degree value proposition” for brands involves offering a one-stop-shop solution covering operations, co-marketing, and digital content creation services.
“Earlier this year, we found that one of the most important areas we thought we needed to focus on was the brand. There are good quality and price brands that don’t have the know-how to sell online. They need a lot of support in operation, fulfillment, warehousing, and digital production and photography,” the CEO said. “So besides selling their products, we help them with the different aspects that would then be able to sell well online, whether supporting the operation or the marketing side. And for us, it’s not just about reselling their products but also going in as their digital partners.”
The fashion e-commerce platform generates revenue through a traditional model that includes a mark-up on products and a consignment model that includes a commission. Revenue is supplemented by additional services it provides to brands, such as photography and marketing. Antaki confirmed that the company’s total sales volume increased threefold between April 2021 and April 2022.