These 10 Egyptian Startups Just Graduated from Flat6Labs Cairo with a Bang

Filtered from about 400 applications, 10 fresh startups made it to Flat6Labs Cairo’s tenth cycle on May 14th, at Intercontinental Semiramis Hotel in Garden City. The Demo Day for Spring 2018 had entrepreneurs coming from across the country, working across various industries, such as FinTech, medicine, training, development, transportation, insurance, and retail, offering innovative online and digital solutions set to disrupt the Egyptian market.

"With a bustling population shortly at  the 100 million mark and 50 percent below the age of 30 and tech savvy, Egypt is poised to be one of the fastest growing entrepreneurial hubs in the world," says Moustafa Khater Flat6Labs Cairo Managing Director, kicking off the Demo Day. "We realize this opportunity and would like to encourage entrepreneurs through their critical first steps of their development. We are now ready for the Eleventh cycle and look forward to welcoming new, innovative and disruptive technologies in Egypt."

The representatives of each startup performed their pitches before Flat6Labs investors, mentors, technology and business experts as well as top government officials, including Her Excellency Sahar Nasr, Minister of Investments and International Cooperation. 

Weelo

A Jordanian entrepreneur quit his job at Abu Dhabi and moved to Cairo and together with his co-founder Sophia Korayim established Weelo, a platform that connects users to their nearest supermarkets to facilitate grocery shopping. They work with supermarkets across the Egyptian capital, such as Oscar, to provide e-commerce platforms to digitise their sales and maximise their business. "We have realised that most of our customers base are students who prefer to order their grocery online rather than hitting the market," Korayim tells Startup Scene ME before they start with their pitch. 

Arza2 dot com

In a country thriving to fill in the skills and knowledge gap present in many underprivileged groups of people, Arza2 dot com aspires to intervene to solve this ageing problem hindering Egypt's economic development. Arza2 dot com  is a Human Resources platform that targets blue-collars, to provide them with training and development programs as well as job opportunities.

Transpooler 

We have all heard misfortunate events involving school buses and lost young lives. Targeting both schools, parents, and fleet companies, Transpooler provides them with a tracking service that would cater for all ends. Transpooler is a GPS-based platform  ensuring safe and convenient transportation for the next generations.

iSagha

This pitch started with a short video of Azza Fahmy's general manager promoting iSagha, saying that the jewellery industry in Egypt is an archaic industry struggling to catch up with the latest marketing and e-commerce tech trends. "iSagha is helping to mediate between jewellery hand-crafters and the world of technology." iSagha describes itself as the first online jewellery marketplace and the go-to platform for gold and silver price checks in the region.

7aweshly 

Especially after the EGP flotation, watching all prices skyrocket to the double and triple, individuals as well as families have been chasing the dollar rate to save up and provide for themselves and families. Recently partnering and accredited by the Central Bank of Egypt, 7aweshly is a mobile application for micro-savings that aims at helping people getting committed to save from their recurring income.

Chefaa

The girl in the picture, Doaa Aref, was diagnosed with cancer. Struggling to find medicine and treatment to fight this deadly disease, Aref who has years-of-experience in digital marketing, got inspired to establish Chefaa, to help people with similar unfortunate journeys with diseases as such. Chefaa is an on-demand application to scan and deliver prescriptions to patients, locate the nearest pharmacy, and order from pharmacies online. 

Tombeely

The team behind Tombeely found that the automobile market in Egypt is a large one. "Every year, Egyptians spend more than EGP 30 billion on auto parts and after-sale services," says Tombeely's CEO and Founder Osama Safwat. Tombeely was inspired by the people's dissatisfaction with the price range and the services they get in return; so Safwat founded the platform to make things easier for both the consumer and retailer. 

MedMisr

Inspired by bureaucracy and lost paper claims given to patients, this startup wants to replace those red and green papers with a digital document of medications and health statuses. MedMisr is a digital third-party administrator that provides Medical Insurance companies with innovative online paper-free solution with fraud controls. 

Wasel

Wasel wants to serve employees and workers living at the outskirts, cities and governorates far away from their workplaces. It is a transportation platform connecting passengers between governorates with professional drivers.

Mosawer dot net 

Mosawer dot com is a platform aiming at connecting freelance professional photographers with agencies, companies, and clients across the Middle East and North Africa. The platform guarantees prompt payment delivery to both sides. 

To conclude the day, the Minister was invited to the stage to give a closing speech congratulating the 10 startups pitching earlier. "We are honoured to be invested in Flat6Labs," says the Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation is part of the main investors of Flat6Lab Cairo's EGP 100 million fund. "Listening to all your stories and your success, I am impressed and proud of all the startups. The impact you have in creating jobs, the social dimension, and the environment. I was also fortunate to be with you last year, and I can see the evolution." 

Main photo: ElMenus' founder Amir Allam giving a speech at the opening of the Demo Day.
Photography by @MO4Network's #Mo4Productions
Photographer: Ashraf Hamdy