Founders’ Support Ends Pilot Cycle With 10 Egyptian Startups That Collectively Raised USD 747 K In 2019

A couple of weeks ago, enpact Egypt — the Egyptian branch of the Berlin-based non-profit organisation, enpact e.V., which is focused on empowering entrepreneurship, ecosystems and international cooperation — held the Demo Day of its maiden entrepreneurial support program, Founders’ Support, at Startup Haus Cairo.

On the Demo Day of the support programme which was being piloted for the first time in Egypt, Ten early-stage Egyptian startups took the stage to pitch their businesses to an audience of investors, entrepreneurs, industry experts, potential partners and customers, and entrepreneurship enthusiasts.

The ten startups that took part in the Founders; Support programme were Furnwish, Leadership Factory, CUP, Raseedi, Pas-sport, Esorus, TechieMatter, AlMatjar, Clinprime, and ElCoach.

They were selected from an initial pool of 300 applicants to take part in the Founders’ Support program. The startups have operations in a wide range of diverse sectors, including design, furniture, sports, training, recruitment, telecommunications, sustainable production, e-commerce, and healthcare.

The Founders’ Support programme is an entrepreneurial vehicle designed by enpact to provide financial support and mentoring for entrepreneurs in their first year of business. The goal is to support the founders and empower them to channel adequate resources into their business ventures.

Founders’ Support 2019 was powered and supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Egypt. The goal of the program was to provide the founders with the real support they need on the ground for their first year across all aspects, from financial needs to personal and business acumen development.

For most parts of 2019, the founders were offered dedicated guidance and over 90 mentoring sessions from 5 well-renowned mentors among the top players in their industries and key figures in the Egyptian entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Key figures like Dina El Mofty, CEO & Founder of INJAZ Egypt, Dr. Khaled Ismail, Managing Partner of HIMAngel, Moataz Kotb, Founder & Managing Director of Cultark, Amr Fawzy, CEO & Co-Founder of Goodsmart, and Amir Barsoum, CEO & Founder of Vezeeta, were among top industry players who guided and mentored the ten startups. 

The startups also took part in training sessions and workshops delivered by industry experts, and raised USD 747 K between them in 2019.

On Demo Day, Dr. Ismail of HIMAngel delivered a keynote talk, in which he touched upon his experience with being part of Founders’ Support from the get-go.

He also talked up the importance of building the mentoring relationship throughout Founders’ Support by taking into account the preferences of both the mentor and the founder as per who they’d like to work with, while also declaring how such an arrangement contributed to a lasting relationship. 

“Mentoring is an ongoing process. It’s not just a one-off meetup over coffee, but a continuous relationship based on forming a real, human connection and mutual knowledge exchange,” said Dr. Ismail. 

Dalia Abdallah, Head of Business Innovation at GIZ Egypt, also spoke on Demo Day. He gave his take on the significance of the partnership in supporting the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the impact of providing hands-on, dedicated support that meets the Founders’ needs and enables them to grow both as individuals and business owners. 

The Founders’ Support Demo Day took place on Thursday, the 19th of December, 2019, as part of the Applications of Emerging Tech conference; the 3rd of a series of conferences for empowering and support the Egyptian entrepreneurial ecosystem, held by enpact e.V. and GIZ Egypt.

GIZ, which has been operating in Egypt since 1956, is known to provide technical expertise, develop capacities and deliver effective solutions in close partnership with local governmental and non-governmental organisations.

Featured Image Courtesy: enpact.org