On 6 September 2022, the board of directors of the parent holding company of Capiter Egypt LLC, a Cairo-based B2B e-commerce startup, approved a motion to remove Mahmoud and Ahmed Nouh from their positions as CEO and COO, effective immediately.
This action follows the Co-Founders’ inability to fulfill their fiduciary duties over the past week and not reporting to representatives of the Board and shareholders during on-site in-person due diligence meetings for a potential merger.
The Board has since asked Majid El Ghazouli, Capiter’s CFO, to act as interim CEO until the Nouh brothers return and allay the concerns of employees, suppliers, creditors and stakeholders.
In the meantime, the remaining leadership works to operate the business and continue conversations with potential acquirers, who remain interested in the Capiter asset.
Recall, that in September 2021, Capiter raised $33 million in series A funding to compete in the country’s growing B2B e-commerce and retail space.
?What happened
It was learned that the decision to sack Capiter’s Founder and Co-founder, came after the two brothers- Mahmoud Noah and Ahmed Noah allegedly did appear before the board of directors after internal disagreements over their management method. They refused to attend the meetings that were held because they were outside Egypt without a clear justification.
As a result of this development, Capiter investors have been searching for potential buyers to absorb the struggling company in the form of an acquisition or merger.
Before Capiter, Mahmoud was the co-founder and COO of Egypt-born and Dubai-based ride-hailing company SWVL (the company, which went public via a SPAC deal last year and lay off 32% of its staff this May).
With his brother Ahmed, he launched Capiter in 2020 as an FMCG platform that allows small and medium-sized retailers to order inventory, arrange delivery, and access financing to pay for goods.Capiter had 50,000 merchants and 1,000 sellers with more than 6,000 SKUs on its platform.
Capiter had 50,000 merchants and 1,000 sellers with more than 6,000 SKUs on its platform.
