Top funding announcements this week | 6-10 October
We saw seven startups announce their fundings this week; three from Egypt, two from the UAE, one from Kuwait and one from Saudi Arabia. Check out the details below:
ExpandCart
Founded in 2013 by Amr Shawqy
HQ: Cairo, Egypt
Latest funding amount: $150K
Funding stage: Pre-Seed
Total funding to date: $150,000
Investors: Betatron, a Hong Kong-based accelerator
The startup was recently selected for Betatron’s latest cohort, and raised funds as part of it.
A cloud-based e-commerce platform similar to Shopify, ExpandCart is designed specifically for Arabic e-commerce websites; allowing businesses to open their own online e-commerce platforms using ExpandCart’s tools.
COFE
Founded in 2017 by Ali Al Ebrahim
HQ: Kuwait
Latest funding amount: Undisclosed seven-figure
Funding stage: Series A
Total funding to date: $3.2 million
Lead investors: KISP Ventures, Kuwait-based Venture Capital
An on-demand coffee marketplace, COFE has been raising money in order to expand internationally.
The app gives people an option to order coffee from coffee houses as well as specialty coffee roasters. It also gives them an option to source coffee beans, coffee machines and coffee accessories through the mobile application.
Sprint
Founded in 2018 by Mohamed Deif
HQ: Cairo, Egypt
Latest funding amount: Undisclosed six-figure (USD)
Funding stage: Seed
Total funding to date: Undisclosed six-figure (USD)
Lead investors: Undisclosed angel investor
As an e-commerce startup, Sprint is a tech-driven last-mile delivery solution that caters to small businesses who have monthly order volume of just a few dozen orders. It allows them to fulfil order deliveries within 24 hours, giving them an edge that often only big e-commerce platforms enjoy. Moreover, it also allows merchants to ship internationally.
AlMentor
Founded in 2016 by Abdelrhman Fahmy, Hesham Heikal, Husni Khuffash, Ibrahim Kamel and Ihab Fikry
HQ: Dubai, UAE
Latest funding amount: $4.2 million
Funding stage: Series A
Total funding to date: $8 million, as per statement
Lead investors: Sheraa from Sharjah and Sawari Ventures, a VC from Egypt.
As an e-learning platform catering largely to the Arabic-speaking audience, Almentor curates video courses and training programmes in areas of finance, health, humanities, management, business and entrepreneurship and offers them in English and Arabic to its customers.
People can also search for talks by mentors who are listed on its platform.
Hive
Founded in 2018 by Abdelrahman Osama
HQ: Cairo, Egypt
Latest funding amount: $400,000
Funding stage: Seed
Total funding to date: $400,000
Lead investors: Abdelmoneim Al-Adawy
A ride-hailing platform designed tor children, Hive allows parents to book cabs to have their children picked up and dropped off to school. The startup offers its services through a biannual subscription-based model that prioritises safety.
Once Hive receives the school and home addresses and details of the children, it creates a group of 4 children who are assigned a “captain”. The drivers then meet with the parents and present their documents, including licences, drug tests, national ID, as well as criminal records and more. Once parents are happy with the captain, the subscription is activated and they can track their children’s ride via their app.
UnitX
Founded in 2018 by Emad Al Ibrahim, Kiran Narayanan, and Ravi Samtaney
HQ: Thuwal, Ha'il, Saudi Arabia
Latest funding amount: $2 million
Funding stage: Seed
Total funding to date: $2.05 million
Lead investors: Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship Ventures
An artificial intelligence and supercomputing provider, UnitX aims to democratise the sector by helping businesses irrespective of their size to use the power of AI and high-performance data analytics.
BulkWhiz
Founded in 2016 by Amira Rashad
HQ: Dubai, UAE
Latest funding amount: Undisclosed multi-million dollar round
Funding stage: Series A
Total funding to date: Undisclosed
Lead investors: Savour Ventures and BECO Capital
A bulk grocery delivery startup, BulkWhiz uses its proprietary AI technology to help people buy groceries in bulk, which is expected to reduce costs. The startup is still operating in its beta stage.
**Please note that all data has been sourced from Crunchbase. Total funding denotes disclosed numbers, and lead investors are mentioned for all rounds, not only for the most recent one.
