Startup Fever In Egypt: The Big Players Ruling The 2024 Funding Landscape Already
Starting off the year strong is Egypt’s growing start-up scene with many fintech, ecommerce, and SAAS companies achieving major milestones in funding. The numbers speak for themselves, as in December 2023, Egypt came first across the region when it came to startup funding, reaching a total of 45.7 million US dollars.
This year, startup companies are slaying the funding scene with the following being the top contenders:
Zeal
Brought to life in 2019 by Omar Ebeid, London-born, Cairo-based fintech Zeal is the innovative AI-powered platform that provides merchants with data, analytics, and tools to better understand and predict customer behavior.
Accomplishment: They raised $4 million in funding led by Raed Ventures and Cur8 Capital.
What Do They Do: Every time a card transaction is made on a POS terminal, merchants will immediately get data and analytics on their paying customers. This transformed how physical retailers engage with and retain their clients.
Along with that, Zeal also offers a customer-facing app that enables customers to track their payments and loyalty points via Zeal.
Bosta
Bosta is the logistics platform used by ecommerce companies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia offering what’s coined as the fastest overnight delivery service. It was founded in 2017 by Mohamed Ezzat and Ahmed Gaber.
Accomplishment: They earned a major investment from the Axian Group.
What Do They Do: The platform optimizes first, middle, and last-mile delivery, offering unmatched efficiency in delivery. To this day, they have successfully delivered over 10 million shipments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
FriendyM
Making every car owner’s life much easier, the Autotech startup FriendyM is a unique kind of platform, as it allows customers to track their car’s status and maintenance schedule using an app. In 2016, Abdelrahman Elgamal founded the platform, which is currently operating in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and other countries.
Accomplishment: They successfully raised $2 million in investment.
What Do They Do: The app sends notifications to users to remind them of their car’s regular maintenance appointments and the necessary maintenance needed, as well as sending an estimated cost of the maintenance.
The app even manages car expenses like fuel bills, parking spaces, and cleaning. They even have a chat support feature that allows customers to directly text mechanical engineers and specialists about any inquiries related to their car.
Roboost
Boasting a platform that offers AI-powered delivery solutions in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Morocco, and Tunisia is logistic startup Roboost. Back in 2018, the platform came to life through the efforts of Mohamed Gessraha, Hassan Gessraha, and Mohamed Ali Sadek.
Accomplishment: They secured a $3 million investment led by Silicon Badia, with contributions from RZM Investment, Flat6Labs, and Saudi Arabian angel investors.
What Do They Do: Known as a delivery management SaaS solution and AI operations copilot, the platform helps to fully automate home delivery operations for major brands, including McDonald’s Egypt and Kuwait, Buffalo Burger, and El Ezaby Pharmacies.
Yodawy
Known as Egypt’s pioneering health-tech platform, Yodawy connects users to 35 health insurance providers, 800 companies, 20 hospitals, and 3,000 pharmacies.
Back in 2018, entrepreneur Karim Khashaba decided to create a platform that provides patients with a comprehensive healthcare marketplace with services that include ordering medication and connecting with labs and insurance companies.
Accomplishment: The startup was able to secure an impressive $10 million investment from the Ezdehar investment fund.
What Do They Do: The platform helps customers to order medication and have it delivered right to their doorstep. It also makes it easier for customers to upload their insurance information by easily scanning and uploading the doctor’s recommendations in the Yodawy app, along with their insurance card.
Mira
Knowing that there’s an increased demand among girls for imported cosmetics and skincare products that are sold at very expensive prices, young entrepreneur Amira Dawood, CEO and founder of Mira Cosmetics and Skincare, turned the problem into a solution by manufacturing her own line of Egyptian products offered in affordable prices.
Accomplishment: The startup secured investments of $200,000 from “Wingoo Investment and Technology”.
What Do They Do: Mira is a startup cosmetics company that offers a wide range of cosmetic and skin care products. They already successfully produced their first locally produced beauty product, and they plan to unveil it this year.
DXwand
Leveraging AI, DXwand is an AI-driven software that automates text and voice conversations between customers and businesses in call centers, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, SMS, and so on. It was brought to life back in 2018 by Egyptian entrepreneurs Ahmed Mahmoud and Mahmoud Gomaa.
Accomplishment: DXwand secured $4 million to fuel regional expansion
What Do They Do: At its core, DXwand is a digital assistant service that simplifies communication between customers and businesses using the power of AI.
Edura
Known as an Egypt-based educational technology startup that was founded by Osama Abdelwahed back in 2021, it’s a platform that connects teachers with their students through recorded or live interactive lessons as well as other services.
Accomplishment: Egyptian ed-tech Edura secured a non-disclosed pre-seed fund.
What Do They Do: The platform is a connecting point between teachers and their students. Teachers get to upload everything from interactive educational sessions and online assessments to recorded student evaluations during study periods.
Each of these Egyptian startup companies has made January 2024 a month of their own by securing funding that’ll help them in many ways, including expanding their market to other parts of the region.
