With $300,000 in funding, Egyptian fashion e-commerce company OPIO expands into the DTC market

Four years after its establishment, OPIO has finally gained the attention of capital. It is reported that OPIO received $300,000 in financing from AUC Angels and other local angel investors in this seed round , as well as follow-up financing from Flat6labs in Cairo, Egypt.

OPIO is a DTC (Direct To Consumer) women's fashion e-commerce company founded by Shady Mokhtar and Reem Abdellaftif in Egypt in 2017. Shady and Reem discovered the surge in online shopping and clothing market demand in Egypt at the time, so they decided to start OPIO.

OPIO Founder

“We saw a huge supply-demand imbalance in Egypt’s apparel market,” said Shadi, co-founder and CEO of OPIO . “Egypt has thousands of manufacturers with excellent manufacturing capabilities, but they are unable to meet the demands of modern consumers, whether it’s the latest fashion trends or digital marketing techniques.”

On the other hand, Egypt has seen a gradual increase in internet penetration over the past decade, especially among Generation Z, but online services are not common. According to a recent analysis by Best Accounting Software, Egypt's internet penetration rate is about 54%, social media users are about 41%, and the proportion of users using the internet for online shopping and payments is only 3.5%.

Based on these circumstances, OPIO decided to cooperate with local manufacturers. OPIO provides clothing design styles, then commissions different manufacturers to produce white-label women's clothing, and displays it to customers through OPIO's official website. This DTC sales model allows OPIO to establish a strong partnership with local manufacturers and sell and interact directly to consumers without going through an intermediary platform, thereby reducing costs. This approach is very similar to SHEIN's operating model . Not only that, OPIO is as low-key as SHEIN. Although it has been established for four years, OPIO rarely discloses its sales data to the public.

OPIO official website

It is reported that the $300,000 seed round will be used to expand OPIO's business coverage and operation scale. Yaser El Khereji, CEO of Albasateen Trading Company, one of OPIO's major investors, said that they are very optimistic about OPIO and will provide the latter with their logistics infrastructure in the GCC region.

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