Cape Town-based e-commerce logistics start-up Shiprazor has raised US$2.65-million (about R44.6-million) in a seed round led by pan-African venture capital firm Norrsken22, taking its total funding to $3.3-million.
AAIC, E4E and Tremis Capital also participated, alongside angel investors that include senior leaders at Google.
Founded in 2023, Shiprazor sits between online merchants and courier companies, giving merchants a single integration – via platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce – to compare delivery options across more than 20 courier partners and route shipments based on cost, speed and service quality.
It says it has processed more than 1.5 million deliveries across South Africa to date.
The pitch is that South Africa’s courier market is fragmented, with no single operator covering every route reliably, forcing merchants to juggle multiple platforms and absorb the cost of failed deliveries. The African Development Bank estimates transport costs across the continent are 75% higher than the global average.
The new funding will be channelled into three areas: expanding the courier network, improving geographic coverage and lowering shipping costs for merchants, particularly in regions where single-courier dependency has driven up prices.
AI agents
Shiprazor is also building what it describes as agentic AI tools for merchants. The first of these, an address verification feature, is aimed at reducing failed deliveries caused by inaccurate address data – a persistent problem in South African logistics. The company said it is the first in a planned series of AI agents intended to automate more of the merchant’s fulfilment workflow.
“South African merchants are resilient – they’ve navigated load shedding, currency volatility and now rising logistics costs driven by global oil prices,” said founder and CEO Sahil Affriya in a statement on Thursday. “But they shouldn’t have to fight their own fulfilment infrastructure on top of all that.”
Read: R85-million for SA start-up reinventing the stethoscope with AI
Norrsken22 investment principal Nivesh Pather said African e-commerce remained “fragmented and unoptimized”, driving up logistics costs for merchants. “Shiprazor is building the intelligent infrastructure layer that African merchants have been missing.”
The company is also positioning itself to handle cross-border flows linked to global marketplaces expanding into South Africa. – (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media
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