Get All Access for $5/mo

Egypt's Most Active Investors: Here Are The Global, Regional, And Local Players Fueling the Country's Startup Ecosystem Egypt's investor landscape has a fair mix of local, regional, and international investors ploughing funds into the ecosystem.

By Ashok Raman

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

You're reading Entrepreneur Middle East, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

Shutterstock

Egypt boasts of over 160 venture capital (VC) firms and investors that are supporting its startup ecosystem– both local and international. These players have collectively participated in over 800 deals over the past five years, worth over US$2 billion.

Egypt's investor landscape has a fair mix of local, regional, and international investors ploughing funds into the ecosystem. Here, we introduce you to some of the most prominent investors, accelerators, and incubators that are funding the Egyptian startup ecosystem.

Egypt's startup ecosystem is part of the top three within the MENA VC landscape, due to the strong entrepreneurial culture found in Egypt, and a supportive environment supported by various stakeholders, including the government, international agencies, incubators, and venture capital firms.

The list of most active investors are mostly local investors, who have primarily participated in lower rounds requiring smaller funding amounts, such as in seed and pre-seed levels. Some of the larger funds are both local and regional players who participate in later rounds, which require larger funding amounts. The investors are a mix of both funds and incubators- examples include Flat6Labs, one of the prominent accelerators in the country, as well as Falak Startups, which is a government-run accelerator.

While the most active investors are local, the investor landscape has always been dominated by presence of more international investors, year-on-year since 2015. It is interesting to note that in the past six years, international firms (beyond the region) have financed more Egyptian startups than regional VC firms.

The nature of business is different between incubators and accelerators vs. venture capital firms, as incubators and accelerators will invariably have a large number of portfolio companies, while venture capital funds tend to participate in seed stage and growth stage funding.

For more insights on Egypt's entrepreneurial ecosystem, check out the report, Investing in Egypt's Startup Ecosystem, here.

This article was originally published on Lucidity Insights, a partner of Entrepreneur Middle East in developing special reports on the Middle East and Africa's tech and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Related: 10 Graphs You Need To See To Understand Egypt's Startup Ecosystem

Ashok Raman is a storyteller who uses numbers as his medium. He loves to crunch data, analyze it, and investigate deeper questions until the stories begin to emerge on their own. Ashok comes from a finance and consulting background, having worked in the strategy consulting and private equity fields across the Middle East and Emerging Asia for over 15 years, prior to becoming a business writer. When it comes to tech stories, Ashok has a penchant for startups in the fintech, B2B software-as-a-service, artificial intelligence, and machine learning spaces. He loves writing about venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, and the general investor landscape of startup ecosystems. Ashok holds a bachelor’s of science in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as a diploma in finance.
Growing a Business

How to Find Your "Oxygen Points" to Sustain and Grow Your Business, According to an Investment CEO

Entrepreneur Network Partner Ashley Crouch sits down with the CEO of Al Zarooni Emirates Investments, Dr. Adil Alzarooni.

Business News

Here's What the CPI Report Means for Your Wallet, According to JPMorgan and EY Experts

Most experts agree that there will be another rate cut next week.

Starting a Business

Nearly 50% of America's Workforce Has a Secondary Source of Income or Side Hustle. Here Are 7 Steps You Should Take to Create Lasting Value for Yours.

Today's entrepreneurs have the opportunity to generate long-lasting supplementary income if they take these steps.

Business Ideas

63 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2024

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2024.

Business News

There Are Certain Words That Will Break ChatGPT. I Tried Them — Here's What Happened.

ChatGPT appears to be unable to process requests that contain a few notable names.