Meet The 13 MENA Startups Competing At Seedstars World For $1 Million In April

Time flies… the sixth edition of the largest annual startup competition for emerging markets and fast-growing startup ecosystems is already here. Seedstars World Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland is happening on April 2^ndto the 5^th. This year, the summit will undertake a new format, focusing primarily on five key industries - finance, healthcare, education, agriculture, and energy to address the global challenges and find efficient tech solutions for each sector. 

As the entrepreneurship forum for emerging markets, the summit will gather more than 1,200 participants at the SwissTech Convention Centre. This will include over 80 hand-picked startup teams, corporates, entrepreneurs, government representatives, ecosystem builders, business experts, investors, ambassadors and mentors from over 75 countries with a purpose to connect, learn, and inch closer to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030.

On the 2^ndand 3^rdof April, the Seedstars Summit will kick off with a private bootcamp for pre-selected startups, where they’ll refine their growth strategy and participate in one-on-one meetings with mentors from the world’s top companies like Google, Udacity, Merck, Amazon, IBM and many more. There will also be an Investor Forum on the 4^thof April to connect well-known investors with Seedstars World startups, and keynote speeches from renowned experts, including Fabio Cannavale, CEO of lastminute.com, a digital entrepreneur and serial investor. 

On the final day of Seedstars World, attendees will gain access to the Main Stage with a chance to meet and learn from a diversity of entrepreneurs from all over the world. The Seedstars Summit marks an end to the 2018 Seedstars World Competition that took place in 75+ countries across Africa, Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. The competition helped uncover the most promising startups in each region and invite them to the Summit. All 67 startups selected along the way will have a chance to compete for up to $1 million in equity investment and the title of Seedstars Global Winner.

These are the 13 startups representing the MENA region at Seedstars World: 

Inggez// Palestine

Inggez is an online marketplace that gives on demand access to gyms and fitness studios while allowing people to pay as they go without membership.

The startup aims to provide a solution for a main pain-point in the fitness industry; the current membership model offered by gyms, fitness studios, and online subscription services is a fitness barrier for around 60 percent of MENA population.

P5M// Kuwait

P5M is an app that gives users access to the best gyms around them, without commitment. With one membership, they can work out anywhere at any time. Some of the services P5M has up its sleeve include integrated online payment to book for classes, space for freelance trainers to rent, and a platform for them to manage all their classes.

Elham Inspire// Libya

Inspire provides an educational environment that enhances the character of teens and raises their competency using technology-based education. This Libyan startup is trying to solve the problem of low quality of education the country and most of the Middle East is struggling with. Therefore, it aims to provide educational services that complement the educational quality and builds it using the best of knowledge that is provided worldwide.

WeeGo// Morocco

WeeGo is a collaborative app that allows its users to move easily with public transit by providing them with tools to track buses and trams in real time as well as notify them on time arrivals. This Moroccan startup tries to solve the problem of unknown waiting time, unknown transportation options, and unknown station locations.

7keema// Egypt

7keema is the first nursing service of its kind in the Middle East. The on-demand home nursing service could attract so much attention in only a few months after its launch. they aim to soothe two pain points at both ends; patients and nurses. People struggle to get a reliable licensed, registered nurse to take care of an elder or patient at home. Meanwhile, urses are usually not well paid. So, given those problems, 7keema decided to launch an online platform that enables clients get matched with a nearby skilled and qualified nurse.

At Home Doc// Qatar

Similarly, this Qatari startup has seen patients spend hours at clinics. At home doc wants to solve this problem by providing users with simpler and quicker steps to getting treatment: pick your phone and your consultation starts right away. They have more than 12,000 patients at a growing rate of 21 percent month-over-month.

Optimalogistic// Tunisia

Optimalogistic is a real-time marketplace for logistics services, mainly road haulage and heavy duty machinery rentals. The team behind Optimalogistic has found many trucks returning with empty containers, adding pollution and jamming up roads without an added value. Thus, they want to share real-time data with clients and “optimise logistics.” Their mobile app is for transport providers to share real time data and locations with potential users.

UrbanPoint// Qatar

This Qatari team found that global trends for mobile operators show stagnant revenues and declining margins. Urban Point connects customers and businesses through mobile-based incentives and telco-powered marketing services.

SmartCrowd// UAE

Historically the most preferred investable asset class has been restricted to the wealthy while the average person is priced out. Smart Crowd is a digital real estate investment platform that lowers the entry barrier by allowing fractional ownership and build real estate portfolio without leverage.

Robu// Jordan

CEOs have a hard time figuring out how much cash they need to fulfill their business plans, and what’s going in and out of the company. Robu is a software that provides businesses with financial planning tools and access to finance. By being a governance platform as well, Robu transforms CEOs into confident data-driven decision makers. 

Spike// Lebanon

Diabetics have a hard time keeping up with the requirements of their condition causing them to fall off insulin healthy diets. Spike monitors the patient’s daily behavior and jumps in automatically and practically with insulin and food reminders on a situation basis. By analysing a diabetic’s daily behavior, Spike provides insulin reminders with food suggestions, a synchronised device, along with a share-with-guardian(s) option.

Temr.cm//Bahrain

There is a dire need for digitisation in small and medium sized clinics, there’s a big reliance on pen and paper, which is a very unsustainable method of documentation in such a very critical industry. On top of that, there’s a disjointed workflow for healthcare providers. Temr.cm is a cloud-based, EMR and Clinic Management solution for small and medium-sized clinics that enables digitization and automation. It’s a total EMR and Clinic Management Platform that fits the healthcare providers’ needs and enables them to fully digitise and automate.

YNMO// Saudi Arabia

Using traditional methods such as paper, pen e-mail, Dropbox, Microsoft Office, is inefective and inefficient when it comes to providing education for students with special needs. YNMO allows service providers including schools, centres and clinics to design and monitor individualised treatment plans. It’s a SaaS that allows service providers including schools, centers, and clinics to design and monitor individualised treatment plans.