Trella
“Can a regional digital freight marketplace become the financial infrastructure layer for trucking SMEs across MENA by embedding financing and payments directly into the freight workflow?”
Founded in March 2019 by Egyptian entrepreneurs who went through Y Combinator, Trella started as a digital freight marketplace to address the fragmented trucking industry in Egypt. It rapidly expanded across MENAP, raising a $42M Series A in 2021 that included debt facilities from Lendable specifically for embedded freight financing. The company has moved beyond pure marketplace brokerage to embed financial services — notably freight financing for carriers — as a core value proposition, using transaction data to underwrite working capital products. Operations were streamlined from a four-country footprint (including Pakistan) to a focused three-market platform: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.