Algerian ride-hailing startup Yassir has become country’s first to make it to Y Combinator. The startup was part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2020 batch and graduated from it earlier this week. The fact that it is the first Algerian startup to have graduated from the prestigious American accelerator was confirmed by a Y Combinator spokesperson in a conversation with MENAbytes.
Yassir has raised $150,000 investment from Y Combinator as part of the program. The Algerian startup has previously raised external funding from different angels and institutional investors but has never announced anything around that.
Mikko Silventola, an angel investor in mobility startups around the world and Wesley Schwalje, a Dubai-based angel have listed themselves as angel investors in Yassir on their LinkedIn profiles.
There were a few startups from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates as well that were part of this batch but they chose not to pitch at this demo day so Y Combinator hasn’t made their names public. These startups will now take part in YC’s next demo day.
Founded in 2016, Yassir was apparently the first ride-hailing app in Algeria. The startup has since expanded into other markets and services. It currently offers ride-hailing services to individuals and businesses across Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia and food delivery service in Algeria only.
It now plans to expand into more services and markets, with the aim to become the super-app for French-speaking Africa, its description provided by Y Combinator in a document to MENAbytes noted. The startup hasn’t disclosed any timeline but according to the description aims to provide payments and mobile banking solutions too, to the 440 million people in French-speaking Africa.