 Hey everyone, thanks so much for joining. I'm Dagwon Che, I'm a general partner at Bond, and we are a late-stage venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley that has been investing together for the last 12 years now and over those last 12 years we have had the distinct privilege of backing and partnering many of the iconic companies that have grown from seed stage to IPO maybe many that have passed through the slush stages as well and you know from the early days of social companies like Facebook and snapchat and Pinterest and Twitter to on the on-demand economies, businesses like Uber and Instacart and DoorDash to the fintech revolution, businesses like Square and Stripe and Revolute and Plaid and many others and I don't bring these names up just to make us look cool, although it does, but they are actually a subset of what Noridin and Yassir hope to accomplish as they scale a super app in continental Africa and from very humble beginnings of an Algerian-focused ride-hailing application to now a business that spans five countries in continental Africa doing ride-hailing food delivery, grocery delivery and payments doing billions of dollars of volume with millions of customers, hundreds of millions of revenue and growing very quickly it's pretty extraordinary what the business has accomplished in a short amount of time and so without further ado, I want to kind of get to Noridin and how he scaled this platform I think question number one that would be really interesting to hear is what was the founding vision? Like what was the idea at inception and how did you decide to start with ride-hailing from the first application in the business? Yeah, actually when we first started, when we saw the opportunity was on the fintech side, so we wanted to get into payments and in the region we operated and like cash is really king, over 90% of the transactions are still happening in cash and if you look at why that is, it's not because of a lack of a banking system, the banking system is there it's just that people don't trust it and the question that we posed ourselves is like how do we get access to that cash and when we looked at statistics in the region, it just turned out that pretty much a big chunk of household income was being spent in food and groceries as well as transportation if you look at food, for instance, the average family size is around 5.6 people compare that to Europe which is 2.1, so we have a lot more amounts of heat and then transportation, you have big cities with barely any public transportation and when we first started, like on the main services like ride-hailing, food, grocery delivery it was pretty much in existence so we're like why don't we use them, they solve important and immediate needs and of course if we execute well then we'll have a very large user base that not only will it give us access to the cash but will subconsciously trust us and once you have that trust then you can start offering payment services and what's cool about on-demand services of course which people don't realize is that it's a multi-sided marketplace, so it's not just the consumers of course you have the supply, who are the drivers in the couriers you have the merchants today we also connect merchants to FMCGs, wholesalers and distributors so it's a whole virtuous circle that we've created and that we can tap into in terms of providing the payment services but also utilize so for instance our merchants become agents where people can deposit and collect cash our drivers and couriers are actually mobile agents so at the end of your ride or at the end of your delivery you can give say like say like your ride costs you $10 you can give the driver $100 $10 will go towards your ride and then the rest can go into your mobile money wallet that you could use both in closed loop and open loop so yeah that was that was kind of you know like how we saw things from the beginning but then we had to start somewhere so we decided to start with ride hailing because to us it was a clear product market fit in a sense that as I mentioned earlier big cities with barely any public transportation and there was no player actually when we first started and we were actually like right on the money I remember the first year we were able to grow very quickly reaching like 50 million in GMV, 10 million in revenue and we were profitable and that was with barely any investment actually so and then we switched into the other verticals till we got to to payment recently yeah and on that topic of there was no existing player in Africa it's kind of a crazy concept when you think about the fact that Africa has over a billion people I think demographic trends there maybe the most compelling globally like by 2040 the largest urban population in the world surpassing China and India you know more than North America and Europe combined yet there was no real mass scale value creation event that's happened in the region even I don't think you've heard this story but even for for us when we got the introduction from Clio and it was like is it even worth meeting this company that's based in Algeria doing a ride hailing app and we have a saying internally at Bonn which is just want in doubt take the meeting and we're obviously very glad that we did and thank you for letting us be part of your journey but why do you think this is why is it that a continent that's so large that has such obvious tailwinds behind it that's coming online is not seeing the kind of value creation that you would expect and and how did you tackle that and approach that as starting us here yeah a few things here I think the first thing is that what people I mean as you mentioned you know like most of the population growth is going to happen in Africa over the course of the next 30 years I think if I remember statistics properly by 2050 you're going to have about like 1.7 billion just in Africa alone which is about 80% of the total world growth population wise and a huge opportunity and what comes with that what and that's what you know like some people don't realize is it's super super young continents I mean if you just like look at the countries we currently operate in over 75 percent of the population is under 35 usually very tax savvy very like very open to what's happening around the world and like huge opportunities to be honest and I think what people don't realize when they look at the the African markets is that they just look at that from the eye of like you know official numbers you know like what the World Bank shows what the GDP in each country is what the GDP per capita but they don't look at the bigger picture so for instance you know some of the countries we operate in it's true that you know like you have the official numbers but you also look at there's like a huge informal market which comes you know like from a cash heavy economy like Algeria for instance which is about 200 billion dollar GDP it's estimated that there's almost an additional 200 billion in the informal market so officially you have you know like someone that is jobless but actually in reality has a side hustle and has a quality of life that probably is as good as you know say like a middle class in in Europe so that's one and then the second point which is what I mentioned because it's a very young population you have all these single young professionals that still live with their parents especially female for cultural reasons and so a lot of these guys actually contribute to the household income so per household the purchase power is actually pretty high and I think you know like understanding these nuances and unlocking them is what you know like I think from outside the continent people didn't see and I think that's why local champions like us you know are able to add that value and actually kind of you know crack business models that people didn't think would work in the region yeah and to that to that commentary like when you think about Africa as a continent obviously it's a diverse set of countries you know they're not all the same French speaking Africa Sub-Saharan Africa etc as you guys started from Algeria and then took the platform to Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa I mean these are all very unique countries what were some of the tactics or what were some of the approaches that you took how did you think about the sequencing of the expansion and you know what were some of the things that you did that were helpful in order to be successful across the launch strategy so our main goal was to I mean as I mentioned getting into payment services and kind of you know like Algeria was our first market it was kind of our lab and that's where we tried things we saw you know like what worked what didn't work and we played it on multiple fronts there is of course you know the strategy and execution but there is also in a lot of the countries we were operating there was like a lot of legal vacuum in terms of what we were doing and that allowed us to understand exactly you know like what we needed to do on different fronts not just like in terms of the execution but also in terms of like working with decision makers on coming up with laws that actually were very helpful in terms of allowing us you know like to expand very quickly so once we actually got that playbook we were able to actually reiterate it like in pretty much every country that we were operating in and what really helped us was the fact that we were a local champion so something I don't mention is that like you see here at least for me is more than a company it's a mission and one of the missions was to actually empower the local talent and most of the engineering talents because the engineering talent doesn't have many opportunities unfortunately in the region and ends up primarily coming to Europe to pursue studies or finding jobs and it was really important for us to empower that local talent and make and show that actually that talent can you know like build world scale platforms and that turned out to actually be a huge advantage to us because when we started expanding into other countries we started hiring engineering talent in each country we were operating in and different like the governments in each country like saw us as an entity that was bringing so much value and so it made the discussion super easy in terms of you know discussing you know like the different legal vacuums how we could do to actually you know like filling the gaps and that's you know like overall with I think a product that was really built for the region and that pride that users took from the fact that we were a local champion was it became part of our playbook to be honest yeah yeah and it's hard enough expanding from one country to another but simultaneously expanding your product as well and you know having invested in companies in the ride hailing and food delivery and grocery and payment space I mean each of these are problems that in and of itself are incredibly challenging to solve and there's a graveyard of companies that have attempted them you guys were able to go from one to the other to the other to the other could you narrate a bit how that story played out and what were some of the challenges that you faced and then as you guys scaled how you overcame those challenges to really go from product A to product B to product C and build a super app ecosystem that exists today yeah totally so as I mentioned we had that vision of getting into payments and really using on-demand services as kind of like a Trojan horse to get to it and we started with ride hailing we pretty much did the ride hailing only ride hailing for about like two to three years so really allowed us to build the product kind of you know build the brand as well and as I said you know transportation is a huge problem in the region we operate in and so once we were able to to get that and there was also like circumstances that pushed us to to move you know quicker into other verticals for instance we started back in 2017 and so we operated ride hailing up to COVID and we were super lucky that we were starting to experiment with food delivery like just a few months before COVID and that was not only a lifesaver but it was actually the best opportunity to educate people during that period because when COVID hit all of a sudden we had a user base that trusted us we had drivers that no longer had you know things to do and then merchants which just a few months before like we're like you know oh why do we need to work with you and give you you know like 20% of our revenue like all of a sudden everyone started you know like going after that so it was really great moment to educate all the sites of the marketplace allowed us to actually keep going through COVID and built towards that that super app concept and and then we got into groceries and then payments but really key to it was to to understand the pain points of all the sites of the marketplace and build a product that would allow us to actually cross sell between the different verticals that we were operating in and a lot of you know like the on-demand services have you know many things in common so from an operations point of view we were able we were able to tap into those you know aspects that were so identical and we just built on top of it and I think you know like as we grew and we were able to grow the teams and put the processes in place it's really helped us you know like move from one vertical to another that's one two on the payment side I mean people would think that you know like cash is an impediment we actually saw it as a huge opportunity of course you know like as you're dealing with cash payments are actually happening as you're receiving your order so if it's ride handing it's at the end of the ride if it's that's you know like food or grocery delivery it's when when you when you get delivered and cash has a huge advantage one I mean if you look at like all the platforms around the world especially like in the western world if you look at you know like the revenue costs like a huge chunk of it is coming in payment processing for us we didn't have to deal with that so like our unit economics like works super well like one of the reasons our unit economics work well is you know cash and then two because we were always eyeing payments at the end what we did was that we built a way to to collect that cash in a very automatic way in a super simple way actually so we have usually our drivers and couriers that collect the cash and then we found like a way for them to actually deposit that cash and we can reconcile the amounts that are deposited like in a very automated fashion and that allows us now to actually use that process to provide wallets because our drivers couriers and merchants are the ones collecting that cash for us and deposit in it for us and then we can reconcile those amounts in a very seamless way costing us pretty much zero dollars yeah and I think the last question that I want to ask is about what advice that you give the founders but maybe even before we asked that one that I'd slot in one of the things that we found really impactful about Yassir when we invested was the mission that you have and the way that that mission especially in a part of the world where you're solving net new problems and really adding products and services to consumers for the first time as opposed to you know introducing a one to ten product how is that first of all what is your mission and how has that mission allowed you to either hire recruit or build your company in a way that's that's led to where you are today yeah so so maybe I need to give a little of my background here because it's kind of tied up to that so I'm from Algeria so that's where I was born and grew up but then I spent pretty much all my adult and professional life in the US I I went to Stanford for grad school and then worked in the valley first in big tech and then took the entrepreneurial path and to be honest me going back to the region where I'm from wasn't part of my plans it just at some point I wanted to give back to the region and so I started getting involved in I would say like in a passive way by mentoring teams sometimes even actually writing small checks to teams that I liked but to be honest kind of like quickly I came to realize that the biggest problem in our region I mean people always complained about lack of funding and bureaucracy as being the biggest impediments I'm not saying those weren't but to me it was also the quality of the entrepreneur him or herself meaning that there wasn't really you know like like the values the mindset and I kind of made me conclude that if I was serious I should get involved myself at least try to attempt to you know build that local champion that could be emulated by others and to me of course you know the best way of learning is by doing and so really my dream when we first started was that each and every person that would go through this year would one day hopefully start his or her own company and hopefully do even better and will be there to to support them and and that was that was really kind of like the mission and still is the second one which I mentioned earlier was really to empower the local engineering talent and show that you know like talents would would be able to you know like build great platforms and I'm happy to say that today we became the largest employer of software developers actually in the whole North Africa so so we're building you know like impact step by step and at the end of the day kind of like saw the dream and you know people started believing in that dream and I think that's kind of you know like mission really sticks with with people to the point that honestly like at some points on especially on the engineering side we started needing you know like more folks that had the experience and expertise and as I mentioned earlier like a lot of the folks that couldn't find opportunities in in the region had to leave and primarily come to Europe now it's actually the other way around like a lot of the folks that went to Europe say like worked for the big companies here in Europe whether that be I don't know like Delivery Hero, Klarna, Vault you name it are coming back and actually joining us so so we're kind of like inverting the the process yeah yeah it's amazing especially in these times where you know the valuations are going up at the pace that people got used to in 2021 etc you know having a business that has a clear mission and is impact oriented and has a story for why it deserves to exist and and the impact that it has it seems like that's also been a really powerful way to hire retain talents in a way that's pretty unique as well so final question our end when you think about what you've accomplished is really breaking new ground you know starting a country starting a company in a country and in a geography that has had you know very limited consumer businesses that have scaled very little very limited IPOs what advice would you give for folks that are similarly trying to break new ground either in a new emerging market or with a new product like what are the things that allowed you to have either the confidence to scale or along the way maybe some of the challenges that you face that if you could do it all over again you would you would give this advice back yeah look I think the first one is just believing in what you're doing I think it's super important I always say that an entrepreneur is someone that defies a status quo so if you're waiting for a red carpet then you'll you'll never be able to to do anything I think that's really important you're going to be operating in a region where everything would actually start from scratch I mean sometimes you know like we had to build the infrastructure for so many things to actually be able to use our products so having you know like that perseverance and always you know like finding solutions to problems you're going to be facing is crucial that's one two of course you know like it's it's a team that you surround yourself with whether that be you know your team you know like that is actually building the strategy and execution but also you know like the people that that can help you take things to the next level whether that be you know potentially advisors or investors you name it I think that's really important three in the region we operate in there isn't as much capital as you know like you find in the US or Europe or the rest other parts of the world and I always tell you know people that's you know capital now is is global I mean you can see us right like we were operating in North Africa and if you look at our cap table pretty much all our investors are outside of the region and so it's really important to seek that capital you know like wherever that is and and that that will really be key to creating wealth in the region and once that wealth is actually created that wealth will actually pass down to hopefully you know like new new ventures so so yeah honestly I mean like these are like the the three main points and then I would say like the last one is really be clear in terms of like the strategy and the execution that you want to have have clear you know like KPI's or KR's but then also always listen to the market you know like as you start executing the market will tell you what's going to work what's not going to work you know like don't be kind of like stubborn and say oh this is the product I'm sure it's going to work and try to force it on the market it's actually usually the other way around and so always build product that the market wants and not the not the opposite yeah no it's it's incredible to to hear you say it because I think when we invested in the business it was also in some ways so strange that we would back a company that's based you know headquartered in Algeria and operating in North Africa but when we unpacked the onion on the opportunity on what you've accomplished to date but really what the what the future holds for the continent and then for the platform I mean across things or payments but even beyond that's an e-commerce there's really a lot of new ground to break and it's uh it's been it's been an honor working with you so far so thank you same here thanks a nerdy thanks so much guys