15 MENA Startups Announced as Finalists for RiseUp’s Pitch by the Pyramids
The fifteen startups will get the chance to become a part of history, at the world’s first-ever pitching competition by the monumental world wonder.
RiseUp announces the full-list of finalist startups that will be participating as part of their first-ever 'Pitch by the Pyramids' competition. The finalists will pitch to an esteemed audience of over 500 attendees, including local and regional hand-picked venture capitalists and investors. Finalist startups are matched with a relevant industry expert to provide further mentorship throughout the competition. The final event, taking place at ‘Om El Donya’s’ iconic landmark, will guarantee global exposure for the emerging startups and support their development.
Regional partners from each of the startup ecosystem hubs such as Cogite Coworking space in Tunis, Wamda in Dubai, Social N' Tech in Amman and Ramallah, The Space in Riyadh and Startup Grind Beirut have organised local qualifier events for selected startups to compete, selecting the most scalable and innovative startups to proceed to the final event at the Pyramids.
“Bringing all these startups to the Great Pyramids of Giza has been a dream of ours since we started RiseUp,” says Abdelhameed Sharara, CEO of RiseUp. “The Pitch by the Pyramids programme is not only a MENA-wide pitch competition for early-stage startups, but also a value-driven experience for participating entrepreneurs.”
Amjaad, Makwa, PaySky, and PayNas won RiseUp’s Cairo qualifier on November 8th, 2019, and will join the remaining cohort for the final pitch event at the Great Pyramids of Giza on the 8th of December, aligning with the RiseUp Summit 2019.
The finalist early-stage startups from Cairo, Dubai, Tunis, Amman, Ramallah, Beirut and Riyadh will be pitching at the event include:
- Seemba, a SaaS service for game developers from Tunis,
- Drysek, a smart solar dryer builder from Tunis,
- Gamiphy, a customer engagement and loyalty platform for businesses from Ramallah,
- Receet, a mobile-based platform for digital receipts from Ramallah,
- Dailymealz, a mobile application for daily healthy meal delivery from Riyadh,
- Abwaab, an online learning platform for students from Amman,
- MellBell, an electronic development board and kit creator from Amman,
- TextYanzo, an on-demand personal assistant platform from Dubai,
- Educatly, a digital network for international education from Dubai,
- Zima, cloud-enabled bandwidth and billing service provider for small Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from Beirut,
- CloudSale, a non-food hotel and hospitality purchasing service from Beirut,
- PaySky, an electronic payment solutions platform from Cairo,
- Amjaad, an energy management Internet of Things (IoT) system provider from Cairo,
- Makwa, a digitized laundry pick-up and delivery service from Cairo, and
- PayNas, a cloud-based Human Resource and payroll platform from Cairo.
In addition to the event’s competitive element, Pitch by the Pyramids will also feature a prominent keynote speaker who is yet to be revealed and an entertainment programme aimed at celebrating the region’s thriving startup ecosystem.
“We're really excited to participate in ‘Pitch by The Pyramids’ in Egypt and gain exposure to the investors in the community,” said Hamdi Tabaa, CEO of Abwaab. “I think the Amman qualifier event was really beneficial and I'd recommend every early-stage startup to take part in the Pitch by the Pyramids programme next year.”
