A Homzmart logo is pictured inside a company's showroom in Cairo, Egypt July 31, 2022. REUTERS/Mahmoud SalamaRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comCairo, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Furniture and home goods e-commerce platform Homzmart has closed one of the past year's biggest funding rounds for a Middle Eastern and North Africa start-up, raising $23 million, its chief executive said.The company, launched in 2020, will use the new funding to expand services, especially logistics, and fill gaps that appear in supply chains, co-founder and CEO Mahmoud Ibrahim said in an interview with Reuters.The latest pre series B round funding round, which included participation from Riyadh-based technology venture capital fund STV, Impact46, Outliers Ventures, Rise Capital and NUWA Capital, brings its total funding to about $40 million.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comIt raised $15 million in an earlier round that closed in the second quarter of last year, after an initial round in which it raised about $2.5 million.Homzmart started by connecting brands and manufacturers with customers in the Arab world's most populous country. But it found gaps in supply chains that prompted it to create a logistics arm, and now has about 100 trucks.It also in March acquired Berlin-based home interior design firm MockUp Studio, which uses artificial intelligence to make designs.Earlier this year the company's activities expanded to Saudi Arabia, and Ibrahim said it had achieved solid growth there. "The percentage of activity in the Kingdom is now between 25% and 30% of the total volume of Homzmart business," he said in the interview on Sunday.The company says it serves 25 million houses in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with more than 150,000 products on the platform.Homzmart has not yet achieved profitability but Ibrahim said it is still focused on expansion and building market share "through lazer-focused profitability milestones".(This story corrects the name of STV in paragraph 3)Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Mahmoud Salama; Editing by David Goodman and David HolmesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Investment in MENA start-up Homzmart rises to $40 mln after latest round.