Meet the 12 Startups Chosen for Google’s Second MENA Accelerator

After a successful first round of the ‘Google for Startups Accelerator: MENA’, the tech giant is doing it all over again and has announced the 12 startups it has chosen from hundreds of applications to form the second cohort.

The three-month digital accelerator programme sought seed-to-Series A tech startups to take part and the 12 startups chosen come from six Arab countries across a range of industries, including automotive, agriculture, fitness, fintech, real estate, e-commerce and entertainment, while five of the startups are women led.

In what must surely have been a well-contested application process, the startups were selected based on several criteria, among them the weight of the problem it's trying to solve, as well as the startup's willingness to employ Machine Learning.

Bankiom (UAE): A super-banking app that allows customers in the GCC to open an account and get a spending card on their phones in 3 minutes or less. 

Ejaro (Saudi Arabia): The first licensed peer-to-peer vehicle sharing platform in the GCC, connecting local vehicle owners with individuals who are looking to rent vehicles. 

ElCoach (Egypt): A fitness app that offers hyper-personalized fitness & nutrition plans based on each individual needs & goals, and fueled by the best-in-class AI model & the expertise and knowledge of leading fitness and nutrition experts in the MENA region.

FreshSource (Egypt): A B2B fresh food-supply platform transforming the lives of producers, businesses and consumers through the use of data and technology promoting fairness, transparency and farmer empowerment.

Hekouky (Egypt): An online legal-tech platform that digitizes and simplifies the user’s experience with the law and legal services. [♀️ women-led business]

Invygo (UAE): An app-based car subscription service that provides customers access to dealership verified cars. 

Mawsuah (Jordan): An online Arabic content rewarding-platform for expert communities using Blockchain technology.

MyTindy (Morocco): A marketplace that introduces everyone to Morocco’s local products designed by talented craftspeople.

OTO (Saudi Arabia): OTO is the shipping software that helps online businesses to ship, track and return their ecommerce orders with the best shipping carriers from a 1 single dashboard.

Sabbar (Saudi Arabia): A B2B on-demand staffing platform that connects businesses with vetted & qualified individual workers in the retail, hospitality, and entertainment industries.

SINC (Bahrain): A user-friendly mobile platform for staff to share real-time data on-site, which bridges the gap between the worksite and the office environments.

Zammit (Egypt): An e-commerce website builder that helps merchants build websites without any prior technical knowledge with access to local shipping and payment enablers. 

The programme is set to hit the ground running as we speak and will continue to run virtually till the end of September. The participating startups are set to receive mentorship in Machine Learning, Cloud, digital marketing, product design/UX, customer acquisition and leadership development, as well access to VCs.