Egyptian AI Startup Synapse Analytics Raises $2M Pre-Series A

Egypt-based AI tech startup, Synapse Analytics, has raised over $2 million in a Pre-Series A round led by Egypt Ventures, with participation from Cloudera founder, Amr Awadallah, Africa Platform founder, Simon Rowlands, and  existing investors. 

Founded by Ahmed Abaza and Galal ElBeshbishy in 2018, the company aims to accelerate the adoption of AI and machine learning in business operations. It is estimated that 87% of all machine learning projects fail, because of difficulties with deployment and maintenance of systems. Synapse wants to change that by streamlining and automating the deployment and management of machine learning models.

"AI can create unprecedented differentiation to any business,” said CEO of Synapse Analytics, Ahmed Abaza. “Businesses are hiring vast data teams, but unfortunately most projects stay in experiment mode, off-production mode or if they ever go to production, they’re rarely trusted by the business due to the diffusion of responsibility that usually occurs in the process. adoption is everything when it comes to the success of AI."

Synapse Analytics is helping businesses to adopt AI through its diverse product suite. Alongside offering their services, Synapse Analytics offers its flagship platform, Konan, as a software as a service (SaaS), on which data science teams can and use to ensure smooth deployment and scaling of their AI models. Konan is the culmination of more than four years of building, deploying and scaling AI with major local and multinational companies. 

The platform gives data teams full autonomy on their pipeline without relying on extensive support software teams, to help in deployment and scaling of the necessary infrastructure and enables them to better manage their machine learning projects and ensure the success of their adoption.

The startup has also developed two other products: Azkavision, an advanced machine learning product that enables any type of facility surveillance cameras to recognise and capture data from footage; and Docxter, an AI powered OCR technology and advanced pattern recognition that extract and process English and Arabic text from images or scanned documents.

“The data scientist is central to our design,” said COO of Synapse Analytics, Galal El-Beshbishy. “Our platform allows data scientists to focus on what they do best: build state of the art ML algorithms. Once the model is built, Konan takes care of the rest of the lifecycle. Our mission is to accelerate the world’s adoption of Artificial Intelligence.”

To date, Synapse Analytics has built and deployed more than 100 Algorithms, in more than 12 industries including; financial services, logistics and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), serving multinational clients, local businesses and startups.

Q1’22 has witnessed a 200% growth compared to Q1’21, when it comes to VC investments in IT and enterprise software. This year, highlight deals in MENA startups working in the space included Saudi AI startup Mozn’s $10 million Series A; Egyptian real-time intelligence platform Intella’s $1 million seed’ Cairo-based app-maker Splendapp’s undisclosed six-figure pre-seed; and most recently, another Egyptian startup DXwand’s $1 million Pre-Series A.