Startup Guide Cairo: how this metropolis is a number one hub for mobility and fintech entrepreneurs

Posted On Nov 20, 2019 By admin With Comments Off

The Startup Guide line of diaries, was initiated in 2014 by Copenhagen-based publisher Sissel Hansen, considers over 20 municipalities such as London, Stockholm, Lisbon, and Miami. See our reviews of the guidebooks for Berlin , Munich , Zurich, Johannesburg, Singapore , New York , and Paris .

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Startup Guide Cairo is spread across 200 sheets and impels for an informative and witty read, with sketches of founders, co-working infinites, investors, educational programmes, and other ecosystem musicians.

The Egyptian capital is also a bloom startup hub bustling with youthful energy, Sissel begins. It has been ranked as one of the more attractive cities in the Middle East and North African( MENA) field for foreign investment and tech startups. It has a low cost of living and a massive person of young people eager to become entrepreneurs.

Cairo is home to three of the top eight African universities.” It has one of the most tech-savvy communities in the continent, and each year, more than 250,000 students postgraduate from universities in Cairo, at least 25,000 of them with a engineering background ,” clarifies Khaled Ismail, Chairman of HIMangel.

The RiseUp Summit has been held in Cairo since 2013. Various startup exits have offset the word, such as Sysdsoft( sold to Intel) and Fawry( sold to a consortium of investors ). Scale-stage startups that have recently raised stores include Fawry( e-payment system ), Swvl( bus-booking app ), Wuzzaf, and Yaoota.

Overview

The book begins with an overview of Cairo’s realities and essentials, such as ease of doing business( bureaucratic ), imposition accounting( complicated ), cost of living( suits any budget ), Internet fasts( relatively slow ), environment( dirty ), beings( generous and genial ), punctuality (” don’t get offended if somebody’s late “), traffic( heavy ), driving( not for the faint-hearted ), ride-sharing( via Uber or Careem ), and trendy vicinities( Zamalek, Maadi, Garden City ).

Egypt has a population of 97.5 million, nearly 60 percent of whom are under the age of 30. The Greater Cairo metropolitan area has a population of over 20 million. Cairo is not only the capital of Egypt but also its cultural hub.

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Egypt ranks in the top seven countries in the world in holding entrepreneurship in high regard as a vocation selection with high-pitched social status. Around 55 percent of Egyptians expres an interest in starting a business in the coming three years – twice the world-wide norm.

The top four municipals in Enpact DataLab’s Startup Friendliness Index for MENA are Amman, Tunis, Beirut, and Cairo. There were nearly 50 percent more startups in 2018 and several new high-equity success actions since 2017.

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One section of the book charts 10 startups based in Cairo. They include MerMaid( on-demand cleaning service with a high standard for customers and cleans) and PayMe( an online-payment tool for SMBs ).

XPay enables squads and educational communities to collect owings and succeed memberships in an easy mode. 7aweshly is a micro-saving mobile app targeting unbanked people. Customers can lodge monies from ATMs, supermarkets or pharmacies.

Bassita is a crowdfunding site (‘ clickfunding ‘) for social causes. For example, it worked with UNICEF on a campaign to fund water for Egyptian residences.

Weelo is a cloud-based marketplace provide purchasers, supermarkets and their suppliers. By digitalising the render bond, it affords real-time inventory modernizes for better customer service and satisfaction.

Chefaa is an app, which connects patients with a system of pharmacies to make sure parties have easy access to their recurring remedies. Faggala is an e-commerce platform for stationery products and services. Class can upload customised charts to help parents with buys and textbook reservation.

MayDay specifies real-time, safe roadside of providing assistance to motorists in need, with a wide network of service providers. Here i am 24 x7 support and a transparent pay process. There are reportedly around five million cars in Egypt and the feasibility of establishing around 300,000 failures annually.

Wasel is an intercity travel startup that allows users to book shared or private vehicle carries-over. It connects travellers in Cairo, Beni Suef, Minya, and Assuit.

The above startups benefitted from programmes such as TIEC’s incubator, Microsoft for Startups, StartEgypt gifts, and C3 Social Impact Accelerator in Dubai. Some of them also featured in Digest Africa’s NEXT5 0 list of African startups.

Startup ecosystem

Two sections of the book profile the support system for startups, ranging from co-working spaces to programmes at incubators and accelerators. For example, Endeavor Egypt is led by entrepreneurs dedicated to helping scaleups. It also offers the Endeavor Catalyst impact fund, and a link with neighbourhood, regional, and world-wide investors.

The American University in Cairo( AUC) has hosted the AUC Venture Lab( V-Lab) since 2013. It lopes a general accelerator curriculum as well as a special one for fintechs. There are training, mentoring, and co-working equipment. V-Lab moves two four-month rounds each year and furnishes zero-equity seed capital to startups upon completion.

Falak Startups, Egypt’s largest startup accelerator, patronizes early-stage startup benefactors through a six-month acceleration programme culminating in a Demo Day. It offers money of 1 million Egyptian Pounds ($ 58,000) to selected startups with a workable prototype.

Flat6Labs has funded more than 100 startups since it launched in 2011. It was founded by Sawari Ventures in partnership with AUC. It offers initial fund of $44,000, with follow-on investment of up to $120,000.

The Founder Institute, the world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, offers a 14 -week programme in Cairo. Through its Equity Collective, instructors can become investors to graduate companies. The programme is strict; less than 30 percentage of admitted founders ended it.

The MINT Incubator races a three-month programme designed for industrialists at the MVP stage, and is backed by EGBANK. It has partnered with Cairo Angels for growth opportunities.

Nahdet El Mahrousa( necessitate’ Renaissance of Egypt ‘) has incubated more than 150 social endeavors in a wide range of sectors. The curriculum previous for one to two years, in sectors like renewables, waste management, creative industries, civic participation, and social impact.

The Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre( TIEC) is published in 2010. It lopes initiatives like InnovEgypt, the TIEC Entrepreneurship Accelerator( TEA) planned, StartIT business plan competition, Startup Support programme for growth-stage startups, and EgyptInnovate platform to connect innovators.

Cairo has a wide range of co-working cavities as well, such as AlMaqarr( founded in 2012) and Startup Haus Cairo( founded by Enpact ). Opened in 2017, Ideaspace also has a fabrication lab for prototyping.

District Spaces, founded in 2011 by serial entrepreneur Mazen Helmy, was the first co-working space in Egypt. It hosts professional and cultural incidents, from skill-building seminars to independent movie screenings and stand-up comedy nights.

Founded in 2013, the GrEEK Campus is located precisely off Tahrir Square in what was originally two Greek institutions. It includes an outdoor amphitheatre and a rooftop garden. With the adage of’ connect, collaborate, and co-create ,’ it also hosts Uber’s Egyptian team.

KMT House, founded in 2017, was designed as an metropolitan tech room. Co-founder and CEO Mazen Helmy was of the view that” invention can reshape a city to be more congenial and vibrant “. The space includes an incubator for city tech mixtures, and the rooftop garden-variety is used as a demo laboratory for urban farming, composting and spray recycling solutions.

This section likewise profiles the’ face of the seat’ of some of these organisations. For example, Moustafa Khater of the GrEEK Campus earlier build 183 institutions for girls across Egypt, and was a director at the Flat6Labs accelerator in Cairo.

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One section of the book accommodates professional tips from accelerators and startup consultancies in the city. The suggestion embraces product-market fit, customer commitment, commerce, sustainability, and talent.

” You have to understand how you’re going to monetise your business, particularly with people tending toward free or freemium answers in emerging marketplaces ,” admonishes Ramy Taha, Head of Digital Banking and Marketing at ALEXBANK.

Only about 30 percentage of the adult person in Egypt usages bank accounts, so there is a lot of opportunity for fintech startups.” Without a strong customer experience, you’re not going to be able to get your product off the sand. Today, you’re not just vie with other banking or fiscal answers. You’re competing against every other application on your design ,” Ramy cautions.

” Founders tend to depend on different advisors and consultants as they originate, and oftentimes these patches of opinion aren’t always aligned with each other, which can cause confusion rather than be a help to the entrepreneur ,” observes Waseem Arsany, Business Development Partner at Benchmark Consultancy, and Managing board of B-Hub coworking spaces.

” Making an impact and making money doesn’t “ve got to be” mutually exclusive ,” says Wessam El Beih, Country Director of Zurich-headquartered Drosos Foundation in Egypt.” A big task at the beginning of your managerial jaunt is generating on motivated people who can identify with your duty- on a shoelace budget ,” she explains.

Dalia Abd-Allah, Head of Business Innovation at the Egyptian-German Promotion of SMEs( a GIZ initiative ), cautions that it takes time to build a successful and sustainable startup.” Being case is truly a quality ,” she includes. The initiative helps startups in renewable energy, sanitation, irrigation, and waste management. Dalia believes that strategic collaborations can also be valuable for startups.

Founder advice

One section of the book interrogations benefactors of four startups, tracing their entrepreneurial travels, suggestion received, ” lessons, and gratuities for the next beckon of aspiring entrepreneurs.

KarmSolar is a solar technology and incorporation corporation that develops solutions for agriculture, tourism, and manufacture. Ahmed Zahran, Founder and CEO, earlier acted in Tunisia and the UK.

” Focus on patients that will enable you to scale and make more dangers. Those are the clients that are going to add value to you ,” he advises aspiring industrialists.” If you understand human incentives, you can add value for all stakeholders ,” he adds.

Companies should also have an effective knowledge sharing rehearse.” A companionship should focus more on the lore it has accumulated, on the team dynamics within a strong institution, and on the storage that allows that knowledge to be transposed from one person to the other ,” Ahmed advises.

Being based in Cairo has its advantages and challenges for inventors.” That rigor or stress put on you by the city is very interesting because it educates you to be pliable and sustained very quickly ,” he observes.

Husband-wife duo Karim Elsahy and Abeer Elsisi founded pas works chat scaffold Elves. It provides users with personalised movement help with changing flights or researching proceed ends. They earlier founded a see core and VC fund Genius.VC( be achieved by Sawari Ventures ).

” In Egypt, there are not a lot of investors, and we dissolved up having to raise $ 2.5 million in seed really from angels ,” Karim remembers.” We made some misunderstandings in underestimating the time it takes to build something ,” he contributes. He cautions benefactors to focus on speed and iteration to develop the right product.

” I always be suggested that if you make it in Cairo, you’ll make it anywhere ,” Abeer explains. She admonishes founders to be very clear in their business relationships about their expectations and ends.” Transparency is very important ,” she emphasises.

Samira Negm, CEO and Founder of social carpooling app Raye7, first labor as a software engineer and circulated between Egypt and Germany.” Being an inventor was a tool , not a goal ,” she asks, describing her app, which abuses social media systems such as LinkedIn to build trust between users and share destinations.

Many beings are stuck in traffic for three to five hours daily. Citizen awareness and culture change were key challenges for the adoption of carpooling. Her younger brother is a co-founder and directs PR and marketing in this regard.

” My best decision is when I started to recruit people not for their technical skills but for their temperaments and fit ,” Samira explains.” Even if you have a strong idea or a strong technology, it’s not going to be enough without the title crew ,” she adds.

Samira too admonishes parties to work for another startup before founding their own.” There’s no other experience in life that’s same to the experience of founding a startup ,” she explains.

The regional startup ecosystem is still changing.” In Egypt, the aptitude fund that has worked in startups is not that big-hearted and there are not many elder startups that have departed and can offer advice from their own experience ,” Samira adds.

Sherif ElRakabawy was an academic before becoming the co-founder and CEO of e-commerce comparison engine Yaoota. Consumers can find, compare and purchase the right concoctions from a range of merchants.

” We managed to raise uppercase from a UAE-based investor in 2015 ,” Sherif remembrances. There are very few investors willing to positioned money into a country that is economically and politically unstable, he sees. But he reads huge opportunity for startups as digitalisation of Egypt’s economy is in its early stages.

Sherif too careful benefactors to be prepared for a high probability of failing.” Try to start as early as you can, because the opportunity costs for everything are much lower when you’re younger. It gets harder to start a company when you have to walk away from a stable salary ,” he admonishes.

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One section of the book describes educational and skilling support for industrialists in Cairo. For example, AlMakinah is a programming bootcamp with courses arraying from the coming month to a full time( announced FireUp ).

Situated within the American University in Cairo( AUC) in Egypt, the AUC School of Business offers a range of courses in entrepreneurship.” We mold our students into responsible managers that can create value and have an impact on everything they do wherever they exit. Most importantly, they are still students for life, making their life a quest for incessant progress ,” says Dean Sherif Kamel.

Investors

The final region of the book profiles active investors and their startup portfolios, together with tips-off for financiers. For example, Cairo Angels, founded in 2012, is Egypt’s first formal angel speculation network, with assemblies in London and Dubai. It vests between 250,000 EGP ($ 14,500) and two million EGP ($ 116,500) per startup.

Cairo-based VC firm Algebra Ventures launched procedures in 2016, fostering $50 million and seeing it Egypt’s largest tech startup fund to date. It has invested in early-stage startups such as Trella, Elmenus, Dsquares, Halan, Eventtus, GoodsMart, Brimore, FilKhedma, and iCommunity. The store commonly invests between $500,000 and$ 2 million per startup.

” We like big-hearted business; the larger and faster-growing, the better. They must be both accessible and justifiable ,” clarifies Tarek Assaad, one of the managers of the fund. The inventors should have distinct attitudes on world markets they dish, and be able to attract top-tier talent.

Delta Inspire for Investment is an investment management firm built by entrepreneurs and magnates. Its initiatives include 138 Pyramids( proliferation busines ), Delta Inspire Board( industry veterans ), Delta Inspire Mentors Network( manufacture managers working on startup strategy and operations ), and the Delta Inspire Angel Network.

EdVentures is a venture capital firm powered by the Nahdet Misr Publishing Group. Its startups are in the sectors of education and culture, and include Entreprenelle( redressing the gender compensation chink ), Career 180( career-services website ), and Books Bike( portable bookstore to compile decipher most accessible ).

Founded in 2016, Endure Capital is a seed-stage VC that invests in local and international startups. Investments wander from $50,000 up to$ 1 million. Portfolio startups include Boom Supersonic( supersonic aircraft) and Aspect BioSystems( 3D bio-printing ). It was also an early investor in Careem, which became the MENA region’s first unicorn outlet( acquired by Uber ).

HIMangel aims to provide startups with mentorship, business structure, and connection with stakeholders. Its median ticket is $100,000 for a minority stake. It was initiated by Khaled Ismail, former senior advisor to the Egyptian Minister of ICT.

It has invested in Fustany, Cubii, Rology Biodiesel Misr, and GBarena.” Demonstrate a enthusiastic demeanour. Your approach to the opportunity onward should contain fairly ebullience to persuade others of the value of your struggle and to build a successful business ,” Khaled advises.

Kamelizer is an angel investment studio providing funds and expertise to tech-enabled Egyptian startups. Founded by Hanan Meguid, it regards tech as a key necessary to scale startups.

The book ends with a directory of useful resources for startups, such as conferences and meetup sites for entrepreneurs. These include RiseUp Summit, Creative Industry Summit, Egypt Career Summit, and Cairo Maker Faire.

To sum up, the book provides informative and practical revelations into Cairo’s startup ecosystem, and serves as a useful framework for other municipals to reflect on and improve their own startup ecosystems.

( Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)

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