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Cairo-based Sylndr has secured $15.7 million in funding as it expands its offerings beyond online used car sales to include auto financing, servicing, and tools for dealers. The funding round was led by Development Partners International’s Nclude Fund, with follow-on investments from Algebra Ventures and Nclude.
Operating in Egypt’s rapidly growing yet under-digitized vehicle market, the company has revealed that the latest funding round comprises both new equity and previously unannounced seed financing.
In addition to the equity funding, Sylndr has also raised nearly $10 million in debt financing from local banks over the past year, bringing its total funding to over $30 million since its launch. This is in addition to the $12.6 million pre-seed round raised by Sylndr in 2022.
The used car platform was founded in 2021 by Omar El Defrawy and Amr Mazen, former executives at local food delivery and e-commerce startups. Initially, the company focused on purchasing used cars directly from consumers, refurbishing them, and reselling them with a warranty and money-back guarantee.
Since its inception, Sylndr has evolved into a comprehensive mobility platform, offering digital auto loans, car servicing, and a marketplace for third-party dealers.
“When we first started the business, our primary focus was on addressing a consumer problem related to buying and selling cars,” said co-founder and CEO Omar El Defrawy in an interview with TechCrunch. “However, as we scaled the business, it became apparent that the market was much larger than we initially thought, and creating value for customers would require us to develop other complementary businesses that integrate with our existing offerings.”
With over 6 million cars on the road in Egypt, the demand for used cars is increasing due to currency devaluation and rising prices for new imports. In 2021, the government banned used car imports, forcing the market to rely entirely on domestic inventory and driving prices to mirror the exchange rate.
As a result, used cars in Egypt, which outnumber new vehicles by a ratio of 3:1, are primarily sold through unregulated dealerships or classified websites, where informal transactions leave buyers bearing most of the risk.
Sylndr sees an opportunity in this disorganized market, which it estimates to be worth $10 billion, by formalizing processes around inspections, standardized pricing, digital financing, and securing ownership transfers.
The average sale price on Sylndr’s platform is between $20,000 and $25,000, according to El Defrawy. Notably, this price has remained stable in dollar terms over the last three years, despite the Egyptian pound losing more than half its value, as used car prices in Egypt are often pegged to dollar prices.
Although Sylndr declined to disclose its revenue or transaction volume, the company reported that sales have increased nearly tenfold since 2022. In Egyptian pounds, revenue has increased 22 times during this period, and by a factor of five when adjusted for the dollar, according to the CEO.
Digitizing Egypt’s car market
Sylndr’s expansion into three new verticals is aimed at reducing its dependence on inventory and capital.
One of these verticals is Sylndr Swift, a digital automotive financing product that connects buyers with banks and underwriters, providing financing approvals in under 10 minutes, according to El Defrawy. Sylndr does not lend from its own balance sheet.
In addition to Swift, Sylndr has introduced Sylndr Plus, which offers inspections, maintenance, and servicing for cars sold on its platform. The third vertical, Al-Ajans, is a dealer-to-consumer marketplace that allows third-party dealers to list and sell cars, with Sylndr handling inspection, ownership transfer, and payments.
Each vertical operates under its own brand name but is integrated into a single mobile app, creating a one-stop shop for buying, financing, and managing car ownership. “We’ve fully integrated these services to help customers buy, sell, finance, rent, and service their cars, as well as to help dealers operate more efficiently and go digital,” said El Defrawy.
Currently, Sylndr’s revenue is evenly split between direct-to-consumer sales and B2B transactions with dealers. However, the company expects that the newer financing and servicing verticals will contribute up to 60% of gross profit within two years.
Sylndr collaborates with over 1,000 dealers nationwide and serves both buyers and sellers through its online and offline channels. While other regional players, such as Contactcars, OLX, and Nigeria-based Autochek, which entered the Egyptian market with AutoTager in 2023, offer similar services, El Defrawy does not consider them close competitors in terms of providing an end-to-end solution for buyers and dealers across the value chain.
Sylndr’s infrastructure, which includes inspection, refurbishment, and bank partnerships, makes it challenging for other players to replicate its model, according to El Defrawy.
Unlike other Egyptian startups that have traditionally used their home market as a springboard to the Gulf, Sylndr plans to deepen its presence in Egypt, where the CEO claims it is “the biggest used car trading company by volume and value.”
“Sylndr is building the digital backbone of mobility in a market where access, trust, and financing have long been barriers to ownership. Their integrated model brings together commerce, credit, and technology to fundamentally improve how Egyptians buy and sell cars,” said Ashley Lewis, Managing Partner at DPI Venture Capital.
This marks the third deal announced by the recently launched London-based VC firm in the past month, following investments in Egypt’s digital savings and credit platform MoneyFellows and proptech startup Nawy.
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