AUC Venture Lab 10-Year Impact Report : simplebooklet.com

4Table of Contents11.1 Building an Entrepreneurial University1.2 The Power of Entrepreneurship Education1.3 10 Years of Sustainable and Scalable Impact1.4 The Next 10 YearsEntrepreneurship from the Heart of AUC 22.1 V-Lab in Numbers2.2 V-Lab: A Driving Force for Egypt’s Startup Ecosystem 2.3 Our Journey2.4 Designing Cutting-Edge Programs2.5 A Growing Network of Supporters10 Years of Impact33.1 How an Engineer-Turned-Entrepreneur Built a Regional Social E-Commerce Platform3.2 Reshaping Logistics One Shipment at a Time3.3 Finding a Product-Market Fit in the Edtech Industry3.4 Planting the Seeds in the Budding Fashion E-Commerce Industry3.5 Easing Recurring Payments for B2B Businesses3.6 Tapping into the Insurtech Space3.7 From Idea to Acquisition3.8 The First V-Lab Unicorn3.9 Exits, Mergers, and AcquisitionsAccelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups 44.1 Fintech and Financial Inclusion: Revolutionizing Traditional Sectors4.2 Scaling Impact: Driving Green Innovations to Unexpected Places4.3 Transforming Healthcare with Tech Solutions4.4 How Gamers Are Shaping Esports in the MENA Region4.5 Harnessing the Power of Articial IntelligenceChampioning Nascent Sectors268101236384044485054565816182022306268727880

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555.1 Building a Community of Active Mentors5.2 Our MentorsBuilding a Community of Active Mentors66.1 V-Lab Startups Attracting Global Investments6.2 Mobilizing Investors to Fill a Funding Gap 6.3 AUC Angels in NumbersMobilizing Early Believer Investments77.1 Fueling Impactful Collaborations: AUC’s Faculty, Students, and Entrepreneurs Join Forces7.2 Building Entrepreneurial Support Organizations in Egypt and Beyond7.3 Creating Sustainable Employment for Youths Across Egyptian CitiesDeveloping a Vibrant Ecosystem88.1 V-Lab: Driving Global Expertise to Egyptian Founders8.2 A Community of PartnersCreating Local and Global Connections99.1 V-Lab Startups9.2 AUC Angels StartupsThe Multiplier Effect10Our Team38690108111112100102104116122126148154155Current Team MembersPrevious Team Members

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The American University in Cairo (AUC) has been at the cutting edge of research, learning, and innovation for decades. AUC Venture Lab (V-Lab) is a stellar example and model of AUC’s successful efforts to establish itself as an entrepreneurial university and fulll its intellectual promise to serve the country’s advancement.The rst university-based accelerator in Egypt, AUC V-Lab celebrates a signicant milestone, one that carries the weight of 10 years of accumulated expertise, campus-wide engagement in innovative solutions to modern challenges, and impactful and sustainable contributions to the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Egypt – a key driving force to the Egyptian economy. V-Lab has committed itself to supporting Egyptian entrepreneurs aspiring to launch and grow innovative tech startups while providing a learning and research platform for AUC’s faculty members, students, staff, and alumni. Through local, regional, and international partnerships, V-Lab has directly contributed to capacity building, knowledge sharing, and improvement of entrepreneurial support programs for new job creation and economic development. As AUC enters its second century, one of our strategic pillars is to further increase and strengthen our contributions to the country’s great efforts toward economic advancement by identifying emerging industry needs and offering capacity-building services and programs to upskill and reskill the workforce in sectors that are vital to Egypt’s development. AUC is expanding its role to better contribute to Egypt’s 2030 Vision with initiatives such as V-Lab – a holistic entity that has promoted a culture of entrepreneurship in Egypt and provided opportunities for youth empowerment and participation. Through an array of activities, programs, active-learning approaches, diverse student engagement, and research output, V-Lab is actively preparing the next generation of entrepreneurs who will push forward Egypt’s vision and thus places AUC at the forefront of higher learning institutions that have pioneered innovation as an integral part of its pedagogy and outreach engagement.Dr. Ahmad DallalPresidentThe American University in CairoBuilding an EntrepreneurialUniversity6 Entrepreneurship from the Heart of AUC

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It is with great honor that I share my thoughts as we celebrate an exciting milestone for AUC Venture Lab.Over the past decade, AUC Venture Lab (V-Lab) has demonstrated remarkable growth in its programs, expanded its outreach, and driven outstanding impacts in Egypt and beyond, as highlighted in this impact report.The report not only showcases successes but serves as a reminder of the power of entrepreneurship education - the power to change lives, families, and communities. In today’s economy, Entrepreneurship has become a buzzword. Entrepreneurs are the driving force behind innovation and progress, and at the American University in Cairo (AUC), we are committed to providing hands-on education and real-life experience inside and outside the classroom, with the goal of empowering our students to become successful entrepreneurs and leaders.We are proud of the various university-wide initiatives we have established being wholehearted in support of this mission. Our V-Lab, Innovation Hub, hackathons, and other programs bring together diverse students, alumni, and researchers, along with corporate partners, to work together and develop innovative solutions to real-world challenges. These programs provide an exceptional platform for our students to gain knowledge and valuable hands-on experience in entrepreneurship and provide opportunities to network and connect with potential partners and investors.At AUC, we realize that entrepreneurship is not merely about starting and growing a successful business but also about fostering an entrepreneurial spirit and mindset. Our value lies in the worth of a liberal arts education that promotes critical thinking and problem-solving skills, creativity, and adaptability - crucial traits for any entrepreneur.Our commitment lies in equipping our students with the essential tools needed to succeed in today’s fast-paced and ever-changing world. Our graduates will have an entrepreneurial mindset and skills to make a real difference in their chosen elds, whether they decide to launch their venture or work for established companies.Dr. Ehab Abdel-RahmanProvostThe American University in CairoThe Power of Entrepreneurship Education8 Entrepreneurship from the Heart of AUC

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AUC Venture Lab (V-Lab) is Egypt’s rst university-based startup accelerator. Since 2013, it has been an active and engaged contributor to the national entrepreneurial ecosystem driven by its mission to help entrepreneurs from Egypt and elsewhere - who constantly strive to make a difference in society - launch, grow, and scale their innovative startups while capitalizing on the American University in Cairo’s intellectual capital, infrastructure, and research capacities, and connecting them to the university network of faculty, staff, and alums.V-Lab, an award-winning accelerator in Africa and the Middle East, has accelerated more than 300 innovation-driven startups and helped entrepreneurs transform their startups across various economic sectors into viable ventures. These startups raised $300 million and helped create more than 12,000 direct and indirect jobs – contributing to Egypt’s efforts to create more opportunities, especially among youth and women. Furthermore, guided by its values and through various offerings, V-Lab has identied and supported over 1,000 innovative and passionate entrepreneurs through capacity building, mentoring, and coaching.As V-Lab embarks on its second decade, it will continue to be resilient, agile, market-focused, adaptive, data-driven and future-oriented, and more importantly, it will continue to work with and partner with different private enterprises, government organizations, civil society associations, and international institutions to help grow the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Egypt through supporting more Egyptians to continue to establish enterprises that create jobs and spur innovation and consequently help transform the entrepreneurial space into becoming a catalyst for investors – both individuals and corporates – from around the world.Over the past decades, V-Lab’s experience conrmed that one of Egypt’s most important assets is its people. Accordingly, investing in Egyptians and their innovative ideas and ventures and promoting an inclusive, private sector-led economy are invaluable to help transform Egypt’s economy.On behalf of the AUC School of Business and V-Lab, I would like to thank all our partners, friends, colleagues, supporters, faculty, staff, students, and alums for their support in realizing our mission and also our innovative entrepreneurs who continue to prove their value and inuential contribution to improving the lives and livelihoods of many Egyptians. I look forward to continuing to work together for many more years and more effective collaboration, innovative partnerships, and sustained impact.Dr. Sherif KamelDeanAUC School of Business10 Years of Sustainable and Scalable Impact10 Entrepreneurship from the Heart of AUC

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Over the past 10 years, AUC Venture Lab (V-Lab) has been at the heart of building a vibrant entrepreneurship ecosystem in Egypt. Today, we are proud of Egyptian entrepreneurs, building hundreds of tech startups that are transforming the economy and attracting more than $1 billion in investments over the past three years. Today, despite the challenging economic environment, we continue to believe in entrepreneurs’ resilience, potential, and ability to transform the future. While our core mission remains the same - championing Egyptian entrepreneurs - our programs and activities evolve to reect the growing complexity of the startups and the ecosystem. Our DNA is similar to a startup - we are constantly learning, iterating, and redesigning our model, and that is how we continue to be relevant and at the forefront of this space. V-Lab’s vision for the next 10 years reects this evolution! First, we will build distinctive sectoral depth in the green economy, articial intelligence (AI), science-based sectors, and nascent industries, in addition to our existing ntech expertise. These sectors are transforming people’s lives and livelihoods, and their impact will be more profound in the next decade. We will build the depth of knowledge, mentorship community, partnerships, and investment networks to trigger the pipeline across these sectors. Second, we will continue to grow the entrepreneurial base through entrepreneurial awareness and education for youth, particularly women. This is the foundation of creating a broad-based and inclusive economy and generating a strong pipeline of startups in the future. Leveraging our content and networks, we will especially focus on creating digital content that is accessible and scalable. Third, we will support the expansion of Egyptian startups into regional and global leaders, leveraging AUC’s vast regional network of executives, entrepreneurs, enablers, and policymakers. Today, V-Lab’s startups are operating in the broader Middle East and Africa, and we will continue to build our support platform to accelerate their regional expansion. For the next 10 years, we will continue championing Egyptian entrepreneurs as they solve our toughest problems, build a more inclusive economy, and transform people’s lives.Dr. Ayman IsmailFounding Director AUC Venture LabThe Next 10 Years12 Entrepreneurship from the Heart of AUC

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AUC Venture Lab’s impact on the Egyptian startup ecosystem since 2013 is signicant. V-Lab has a proven track record of success, with its portfolio companies having raised over $300 million in investment and created thousands of jobs, making a tangible economic impact.The accelerator has helped create a more vibrant and supportive environment for startups and raise the prole of Egypt as a hub for innovation. V-Lab has also played a role in developing the skills and knowledge of Egypt’s entrepreneurs and has helped to connect them with the resources and networks they need to succeed.From conducting challenges and ideation sessions in promising industries to supporting entrepreneurs with idea generation, business design, validation, and eventually fundraising, V-Lab has developed a full path for entrepreneurial support across the different stages, facilitating market entry and ensuring higher business survival rates. Keen on spreading the entrepreneurial mindset beyond the walls of its main programs, V-Lab often hosts events and discussions, bringing together policymakers, industry leaders, and entrepreneurs to discuss policy frameworks that could facilitate the entrepreneurial journey across different industries. V-Lab also often collaborates with corporate partners to spark innovation inside organizations to respond to market gaps and improve eciency. Driven by excellence and knowledge, V-Lab has also developed various partnerships over the years that allow entrepreneurs to benet from cross-border expertise and discover different markets.In efforts to amplify its reach and widen its impact, V-Lab started its capacity-building program for other supporting organizations. The program has served 83 organizations all over Egypt and 10 organizations in UAE, Kenya, Rwanda, Lebanon, Palestine, South Africa, Tunisia, and Nigeria. By connecting various stakeholders, employing valuable resources, and applying tried-and-tested knowledge, V-Lab has signicantly contributed to building the entrepreneurship ecosystem over the past 10 years.V-Lab’s efforts were crowned as it got recognized as the Top Accelerator in Africa and a MENA Top Challenger, thus turning eyes to Egypt’s rapidly evolving and promising ecosystem. AUC Venture Lab: A Driving Force for Egypt’s Startup Ecosystem18 10 Years of Impact

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2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023JuneV-Lab portfolio exceeds 100 startups with the graduation of its 10th cohortJanuaryV-Lab starts angel investor network for early-stage startups and members invest in rst dealNovemberAwarded ‘MENA Top Challenger’ by UBI GlobalMarchV-Lab opens Quarantine Clinic to support entrepreneurs during pandemicAprilFintech Accelerator recognized by AACSB as an ‘Innovation That Inspires’JuneV-Lab startups create more than 8,000 job opportunitiesJanuaryMayV-Lab inaugurates capacity-building program for incubator and accelerator managers around the countryJuneInvestments in V-Lab startups reach $ 200 millionV-Lab launches ‘Startup Launchpad’ for idea-stage entrepreneursDecemberV-Lab startups create more than 10,000 job opportunitiesMarchFirst portfolio startup IPO as Cycle 8 graduate Swvl lists on NasdaqJuneV-Lab kicks off rst edition of its one-day entrepreneurship summitMarchGlobal Startup Awards select V-Lab as ‘Top Accelerator’ in AfricaJanuaryV-Lab recognized as ‘Top Challenger in MENA’ by UBI GlobalJuneV-Lab celebrates 10 years of impactDecemberAUC Angels ranked among MENA’s most active investorsAprilInvestments in V-Lab startups reach $ 300 millionEntrepreneurship from the Heart of AUC10 Years of Impact 21

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Designing Cutting-Edge ProgramsLaunched in 2013, AUC Venture Lab (V-Lab) came to life as Egypt’s rst university-based accelerator. At a time of rapid political and economic change in Egypt, the entrepreneurship ecosystem was burgeoning, inspiring youth through the opportunities entrepreneurship could open up. V-Lab started with a mission to help founders launch their startups and connect the AUC community with entrepreneurial leaders. The journey started with the Startup Accelerator, followed by other programs that addressed the entrepreneurs’ needs from the idea development stage all the way through their rst rounds of investment and business growth.Ten years later, AUC Venture Lab remains committed to helping entrepreneurs launch, grow, and scale their innovative tech-based startups, connect them with world-class resources, and build meaningful and valuable networks while providing a learning and research platform for the AUC community to engage with entrepreneurs.Discover our programs in the following few pages.Our agship accelerator is a sector-agnostic program that helps entrepreneurs design and grow the region’s next generation of tech-enabled, innovation-driven startups. Since its inception in 2013, it has graduated 250+ startups and helped thousands of founders design their business models and prepare for investment and scaling. Graduates of this program span industries including healthtech, e-commerce, real estate, AI, logistics, supply chain, mobility, and more and include Swvl, Orcas, Koinz, GBarena, and Rology. For the full list of V-Lab startups, ip to section 9.With the support of Arab African International Bank (AAIB) and Sodic as the programs’ leadership corporate co-founders, the program initially started with six startups in its rst cycle and has been running for 20 cycles, serving more than 20 startups in recent cycles. The program’s supporters continue to grow to include market leaders, international NGOs, and impactful multinational corporations that have been actively involved in the program, providing entrepreneurs with market insights, mentorship, and support. As the entrepreneurs’ proles changed, along with their professional experience, the gaps they chose to address, and the quality of their solutions, so did the V-Lab Startup Startup AcceleratorAccelerator’s design. The program adopted a human-centered approach, and the program’s content, offerings, and the entire acceleration experience were revamped to t startups’ requirements across different phases. While the program’s initial design focused on business modeling and prototyping, it underwent constant iteration and development to address the entrepreneurs’ changing needs, from market testing and product launching to business development, growth hacking, investment readiness, network building, and exposure. The range of industries the program has supported also widened over the years, and the depth of the program’s support grew accordingly. While the rst few years featured many e-commerce solutions, as the ecosystem developed, the accelerator’s team started identifying market gaps across different sectors and running activities to shed light on these challenges and empower entrepreneurs to solve them. Among the industries that the accelerator has garnered experience in over the years are healthtech, AI, energy, sustainability, edtech, logistics, supply chain, entertainment, and more.Today, V-Lab’s Startup Accelerator is a four-month journey that arms entrepreneurs with resources, insights, skills, and opportunities to help them build stronger startups.2210 Years of Impact

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More than 60% of the Egyptian population is reportedly unbanked. Individuals and SMEs, especially in lagging regions around Egypt, face challenges accessing the traditional nancial infrastructure. With the Egyptian Government’s commitment to nancial inclusion, the evolving focus on digital nance, and almost 100% mobile penetration, ntech is emerging as a key vertical in the country’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. Having identied this opportunity early on, V-Lab’s Fintech Accelerator came to life eight years ago with a mission to spearhead the country’s nancial inclusion efforts.Founded in 2015 as Egypt’s rst and only nancial technology dedicated accelerator, in collaboration with the Commercial International Bank (CIB Egypt), V-Lab’s Fintech Accelerator has been committed to supporting early-stage entrepreneurs from all backgrounds who are attempting to develop nancial technology solutions for Egypt and the region to build a nancially inclusive economy, increase access to information and services and reduce poverty.AUC Venture Lab Fintech Accelerator is a four-month equity-free program for ntech startups, offering specialized business knowledge and technology support as well as networking opportunities with market leaders. The program focuses on equipping entrepreneurs with business design skills, growth hacking techniques, and investment readiness support through a span of services like hands-on coaching, Fintech Acceleratorexpert mentorship, access to an investment clinic, peer-to-peer support, and showcasing and networking opportunities in the program’s demo day and at other local and international events. The dedicated program accelerating ntech innovation connects stakeholders to pave the way for growing the economy, overcoming poverty, and enhancing quality of life.The Fintech Accelerator’s success is primarily measured by its startups, their performance, and their social impact. To date, the Fintech Accelerator has graduated 70 startups and supported 130+ entrepreneurs, which forms about a third of Egypt’s ntech startups. Over the past three years, 80% of the accelerator’s graduates are still actively operating in the market. V-Lab’s portfolio of ntech startups includes businesses working across lending, savings, investment, infrastructure, govtech, payments and more! Fintech is reshaping the nancial services industry through digitization, making nancial services more affordable and inclusive. To date, V-Lab ntech startups have nancially enabled more than 300,000 users, signicantly impacting the social and nancial inclusion fronts in sectors including agriculture, healthcare, payment, remittances, lending, insurance, savings, nancial literacy, and alternative nancing. The majority of the user base of these startups are unbanked individuals who otherwise would have been excluded from these nancial or nancially enabled services. “The rst time I heard about V-Lab, it was still an idea in its infancy. Shortly thereafter, it became reality and stood out as one of the best incubators in Egypt and the leading university incubator in Africa. I have personally invested in several startups that have been incubated by V-Lab, which I am very proud of.”Khaled Ismail, PhDManaging Partner at HIMangel2410 Years of Impact

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Through ocial partnerships with leading nancial institutions, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and the university aliation, the program is in touch with the ecosystem’s key players, which allows participants to learn from real-life cases that preceded them, access top-tier industry experts for mentorship and explore potential collaborations while discussing setting up and growth challenges with regulators and decision-makers. V-Lab’s Fintech Accelerator was selected by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) as a ‘Global Innovation That Matters’ in 2020.Since starting in 2015, the space has grown exponentially. Founders have become more keen on solving more complex problems, transforming industries, and developing new use cases leveraging nancial technology to improve individuals’ lives and businesses’ performance. “CIB has been a steadfast supporter of AUC Venture Lab for the past years. Together, through our mentorship, partnership building, and market support initiatives, we have helped to nurture and grow startups into successful businesses. We are excited to continue our collaboration with AUC Venture Lab to help even more entrepreneurs achieve their goals.”Hussein AbazaCEO and Managing Director of CIB Egypt2510 Years of Impact

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As V-Lab’s agship accelerator evolved further to serve entrepreneurs who have already launched their startups or were just about to, we still believed in the impact of mentorship and knowledge at earlier stages. With research showing that more than 50% of the adult Egyptian population was interested in starting a business and Egypt ranking among the largest ve startup ecosystems, Startup Launchpad was born to expand the number of tech-based Egyptian startups, especially in regions where there was limited or no access to entrepreneurial education. Startup Launchpad provides an eight-week immersive journey for idea-stage entrepreneurs to acquire the foundations of entrepreneurship and develop minimum viable products of their ideas. In 2020, the program welcomed its rst cohort of idea-stage startups and founders in partnership with the Egyptian Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA). AUC Venture Lab’s team carefully curated Startup Launchpad’s curriculum to offer participants an introduction to entrepreneurship, an overview of the design thinking process and business model design, testing and validation tools, as well as the basics of marketing, accounting and nancing for startups. Each cycle ends with a demo day where participants pitch their solutions to ecosystem leaders and compete over further support from program partners (including incubators, accelerators, nancial institutions, and governmental organizations) that would empower them further and cash prizes to kick start their businesses.Startup LaunchpadFirst launched during the pandemic and offered virtually, the program provided extensive training and coaching to help youth with a passion for technology effectively develop business ideas and increase their startups’ chances of survival and success. To date, Startup Launchpad has run four cycles, graduating 150 entrepreneurs across nine Egyptian governorates and delivering 600 hours of mentorship, dedicated coaching, and knowledge sessions by experts. Startup Launchpad’s portfolio of 56 startups includes businesses in ntech, agritech, healthtech, e-commerce, internet of things (IoT), hiring, food and beverage (F&B), fashion, and more! After completing the program, businesses like Original Tools Home, Chef’s House, and Beljoumla went on to join the Startup Accelerator to build on the knowledge their teams acquired from Startup Launchpad and get further support with launching their solutions and expanding their customer base. 15% of Startup Launchpad startups joined more advanced acceleration programs and moved to a more advanced stage beyond their ideation stage, some of which have already started raising funds.26 10 Years of Impact

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As the number of early-stage startups in Egypt grew year after year, a noticeable gap in their funding options began to ensue. Established with the purpose of lling the funding gap for early-stage tech startups, AUC Angels is the rst university-based angel investor network in the Middle East and Africa. The network connects vetted startups with accomplished professionals from various industries and diversied backgrounds. The network’s unique advantage lies in its ability to engage AUC community members and alums to not only provide funding, but also avail their expertise and connections that support startup growth during the critical early stage. Through the network, members get access to a vetted pipeline of investable startups with high growth potential. AUC Angels also provides transaction support, including operational due diligence, deal preparation, and term mediation, as well as managing syndications with other angel networks. In addition to investing, AUC Angels members often choose to serve as experienced mentors and co-builders for the startups, aspiring to create long-term value for their portfolio beyond capital deployment. Since its launch in 2018, the network has been joined by more than 60 angel investors, predominantly AUC alums from a broad spectrum of industries, who enjoy sharing their market experience, discussing investment opportunities, and empowering entrepreneurs with their connections. AUC Venture Lab’s startup graduates serve as a feeder into the network, providing access to scalable startups that have launched their products, and proved traction in the market, with a promising chance for positive returns. Network members get the opportunity to engage with AUC Venture Lab’s startups during their acceleration through advisory, mentorship, and other tailored models.AUC AngelsTo date, AUC Angels’ investments have reached $1.6 million across 26 deals. 15 of AUC Angels’ portfolio startups received follow-on funding. AUC Angels’ portfolio includes startups in ntech, healthtech, e-commerce, gaming, edtech, SaaS, transportation, and more.Discover AUC Angels portfolio in section 9.With a focus on providing promising investment opportunities and helping entrepreneurs land strategic investments, the network was ranked among the top 10 most active investors in early-stage startups in Egypt, with regular pitch nights taking place every quarter.While AUC Angels’ diversied portfolio continues to attract local and international investments, the network has also developed partnerships and collaborations with other networks and funds. Today, AUC Angels has active partnerships with more than 20 entities across GCC and Africa and regularly syndicates with leading local and regional angel networks. Its partnerships with other angel networks open doors for entrepreneurs in the Egyptian market and beyond and provide support that extends beyond the deal ow.In addition to the network members’ contribution to the startups, the AUC Angels team is active across the ecosystem, providing advisory services and training to entrepreneurs. Advisory services are provided around fundraising, strategy formulation, development of business plans, and nancial modeling. The specialized training provides guidance on creating an attractive investment case, building a data room, enhancing a pitch deck, and preparing for pitch nights and investor meetings.2810 Years of Impact

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How an Engineer-Turned- Entrepreneur Built a Regional Social E-Commerce PlatformQ&A with Hussein Momtaz, co-founder and CEO of KoinzKoinz is an intelligent growth engine for restaurants. The startup helps restaurants collect and manage data, gain and retain customers, collect actionable feedback, and promote their businesses.I would say Koinz is a social e-commerce platform, like merging TikTok and a food delivery service. Think about it this way: what if you can build a massive follower space for your restaurant that is bigger than Instagram? They can review your restaurant and have interactions with you that can help grow your brand through their social circles. That’s the idea behind Koinz. In Saudi Arabia, which is our biggest market, it costs about $20 - $30 to acquire a new customer to order from a food delivery application. With Koinz, we have reduced this cost to about $2 - $4. How? We developed a very simple loyalty program for the brand. Customers who visit a restaurant collect points linked to their mobile number after their order. The mobile number serves as a wallet where you collect points, which can only be redeemed through downloading and using the Koinz application. The starting point is the oine customer, who is then encouraged to download Koinz to redeem their points. We started in Egypt and quickly expanded to Saudi Arabia, seeing the opportunity in the market. The Saudi market is relatively more acquainted with the F&B industry. We had been eyeing Saudi Arabia, and then we met the largest point of sale company in the country at an event and took it from there. Ideally, we want to branch out of the food industry and explore other industries.How would you describe Koinz to a layperson?The most signicant support that we received from V-Lab is that they shifted our thinking. I am a computer engineer by training. I did not think about user pains or solving a business problem. We thought as engineers. V-Lab Mentor Hani W. Naguib helped us understand evidence-based entrepreneurship. He helped us understand customers’ needs, process customer input, and not base our business solely on a technical challenge. V-Lab also helped us with networking within the startup ecosystem, hiring, and connections to VCs. On both a personal and professional level, I go back to Dr. Ayman Ismail for big decisions. We got an acquisition offer last year, and he really helped us think strategically about it as a thought partner. You know, recently, I saw a picture of my wife and I, standing by our booth back at an AUC V-Lab event, and the booth’s banner focused on the social aspect of building the brand for restaurants. Back then, the startup was still called ShopX. We pivoted a lot to attract customers and restaurants. Still, the main idea continued to be to serve customers as a social platform for the F&B industry. We incorporated loyalty programs to encourage feedback and engagement, and then we went into ordering. But now, we are looking at investing in the social direction. How did AUC V-Lab support you along your journey? 36 Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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3910 Years of ImpactAs of the end of 2022, we have facilitated more than one million orders with more than 2,400 active locations. We have more than 400,000 new users and about 1.5 million total users. Orders generated through Koinz are about $15 million annually, with 90% of this revenue from Saudi Arabia. Koinz is operated by 80 employees.In 2021, we received $4.8 million in seed funding from Tinder’s co-founder Justin Mateen to continue expanding our work and growing. We plan to 10X the company in the next three years and expect to double the team. We also want to hit protability and expand into other countries within the next two years. How do you plan on growing over the coming years? “Collaborating with the V-Lab team was always a pleasure. With each cycle, it felt like being with a growing family of an inspiring team giving their everything, every day, to support inspiring entrepreneurs make their dream startups come true.” Hani W. NaguibInnovation Consultant and V-Lab Mentor37Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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Reshaping Logistics One Shipment at a TimeWhen Ahmed Gaber, Mohamed Ezzat, and Mohamed El-Houssainy started Bosta in 2017, they had one dream: to seamlessly fulll and ship all types of items for all businesses, no matter how big or small.Ezzat, Gaber and El-Houssainy had solid experience in the e-commerce industry and the intent to transform it. They noticed the business pains that e-commerce platforms faced when it came to shipping, from struggling with eciency to nding the right combination of reliability and affordability. With the belief that technology could completely change the logistics scene, they started Bosta.The startup took off as a local courier service relying on a sharing economy model for delivery across Cairo and Alexandria. Bosta’s platform allowed users to track shipments and communicate with the courier. Joining V-Lab’s Startup Accelerator, Bosta’s team worked further on developing their model and planning for quick growth. The startup initially targeted on-demand, same-day deliveries before shifting to next-day deliveries. It currently works with e-commerce companies of all sizes, focusing on small businesses.Today, Bosta is an e-commerce courier providing a reliable, premium, technology-powered experience for businesses and individuals to send, receive, and track their shipments easily and comfortably. The startup helps small businesses store and deliver their orders and analyze their performance. Their asset-light model employs freelance drivers who are paid for every successfully delivered order, increasing job opportunities, empowering small businesses, and allowing for broader market penetration with more than 25 hubs. Within a year of its launch, the startup landed early investments from Numu Capital, The Cairo Angels, and Fawry, which fueled the young startup’s plans for growth and enabled it to penetrate a regional market estimated then at $3 billion and expected to reach $90 billion in 2026.In 2020, the startup reported a 97% successful delivery rate as it sold a minority stake to DPD group, Europe’s second-largest parcel delivery network that had eyed the market for its potential, in a seven-gure Series A deal. This deal was followed by another $6.7 million round led by Silicon Badia and other investors. Bosta hit the 10 million shipment milestone in 2022 and opened its rst oce in Saudi Arabia after a pre-Series B funding round led by Khwarizmi Ventures and Hassan Allam Holding. As it entered the Saudi Arabian market, the startup focused on underserved areas and SMEs.Already serving more than 10,000 merchants across two markets, Bosta continues to plan for growth. A year after it entered Saudi, another milestone followed for the startup as Ken Allen, former CEO of DHL Express, joined their board of directors and announced investing an undisclosed amount. Allen joined as the startup announced its expansion plans across MENA. But with every new market tapped and new service launched Bosta’s team remains focused on their initial vision: to facilitate the e-commerce experience for companies - big or small.38Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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Finding a Product-Market Fit in the Edtech IndustryQ&A with Hossam Taher, CEO and head of product at OrcasOrcas is a tailored one-to-one tutoring platform that enables parents and their children to personalize their learning experience as they go through the international schooling system. When we rst started, our primary focus was on the tutor. We focused on youth employment and wanted to provide part-time jobs. Our ads read statements like ‘Increase your income’ or ‘Become nancially independent’, all targeted towards students. The three job opportunities we offered on our platform were babysitters, tutors, and language acquisition instructors. We were able to attract high-caliber students and provide packages to parents looking for the service. As time passed, we started asking ourselves: where is the demand? How can we generate better prot margins? What makes Orcas unique as a platform?We found that the business metrics were better in tutoring, and this was for several reasons. There is a bigger market for tutoring since you are addressing the demand of the entire school system. As a tutor, you can offer lessons across many subjects, and it is scalable. And then, unintentionally and quite organically, the tutoring service demand grew compared to the other job Orcas pivoted a few times to oer real value to parents and their children. Can you share more about the problem you were trying to solve and how it evolved over the years?opportunities. We then realized that our business value needed to shift from youth employment to becoming more parent and student-focused. Over the years, we continued to grow; we would triple and quadruple the size of our student base year after year. Word-of-mouth served us well, and we received referrals from parents, students, teachers, and schools. We even started receiving requests from Egyptians abroad, particularly as we shifted to becoming an online tutoring service. This international market, mainly concentrated in the Gulf countries, started to demand even more tutoring hours in comparison to the Egyptian market. Responding to international demand, we began exploring what we needed to do to make our tutor prole globally competitive and relevant. We started introducing career paths for tutors, where they need to unlock different levels to increase their hourly rates and where they can track metrics that they could improve to advance in their career paths. On the business side, we began thinking about what markets we needed to focus on: should we expand into markets where we already have a presence, or should we go for markets that make sense on paper? We decided to explore Pakistan, considering the big student market and that tutoring is a common practice in the country. Speaking of organic international outreach, how did you capitalize on these opportunities and expand Orcas’ oerings abroad?However, after setting up operations there, we discovered we had overlooked some factors, such as parents being a lot more price-sensitive than in the Egyptian market. On top of that, people in Pakistan spoke an entirely different language, and we found it more challenging to identify the pain points correctly. 40Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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We decided it made more sense to double down on the GCC market. We shifted to a global tutoring platform that provides one-to-one quality learning experiences for international school students, mainly from the British and American systems, while focusing on MENA. We have a great pool of teachers who provide great personalized learning experiences, and Orcas offers these teachers an enabling learning environment. We provide learning paths for students based on a number of lessons imported from the established learning curricula. Teachers are incentivized to add lessons and homework from Orcas’ learning bank that we have created. Through completing lessons and tasks, the students receive automatically generated reports. These reports also offer space for teachers to provide their own input. Parents receive reports on their children’s performance by the end of the year. How do you remember your journey with V-Lab? Well, AUC’s network is a very respected community, and it has given us a lot of credibility. The community of like-minded people and professors with so much knowledge and understanding of business cases, who attend workshops and work together in a co-working space is key. They helped us think about three things: Are we solving a real problem and pain point? Are people willing to pay for it, and is there a market? And then is there a skilled team to execute the idea? Until now, after we graduated from the program, they still reach out and actively engage with us. 4341Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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"Imagine a captivating scene: a vibrant lighthouse, illuminating the way amidst a sea of possibilities. As AUC Venture Lab celebrates 10 remarkable years, we proudly stand as that guiding light. Our partnership empowers young entrepreneurs, combining innovative vision with talent nurturing. Together, we shape a future where happiness thrives - a lighthouse of boundless opportunities and transformative journeys." Amr SolimanFounder and Chairman of Mountain View Our team is now more than 65 people, running a platform that covers 20,000 learners across 20 countries, primarily in MENA and the GCC. We have more than 100,000 online content resources. We plan to focus more on the UAE and Saudi Arabia markets. We also want to develop the learning experience by incorporating more assessments, reporting tools, and questions with various question types, and close deals with content creators that include video resources and articles. In terms of building the capacity of our tutors, we want to work on upskilling and connecting the teachers to professional development platforms. In terms of the student learning experience, we are exploring AI to improve the personalization of learning. For example, if I know that a student is learning like a specic cohort or prole, I can connect them with a teacher who performs well with that particular prole. This will support better matching between tutors and students, hopefully leading to better learning results for the students. Where do you see Orcas over the coming year as you continue to evolve? 42 Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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Planting the Seeds in the Budding Fashion E-Commerce IndustryPalma and Sacer share their stories of developing local fashion brands and expanding their impact across Egypt and beyond. The MENA region has seen unprecedented growth in the e-commerce industry over the last couple of years, with a faster growth rate than any other region in the world and an estimated 209 million customers purchasing online at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Egyptian startups working in the e-commerce space have been building their platforms for years before this growing demand. Online platforms offer great avenues for local fashion brands to showcase their products and build their brand names. Palma: Connecting LocalDemand with GlobalFashion TrendsWhen Mostafa Magdy noticed that there were a lot of international fashion brands present in Egypt but not enough exposure for local fashion brands, he thought this was worth further investigation. There were many Egyptian brands, but the idea of building a brand was not very present, although the technical capabilities to establish a quality local brand existed. He decided to launch an Egyptian-born fashion brand called Palma in 2016.As CEO of Palma, Magdy was looking to create a local brand with a solid online presence that incorporated Egyptian local taste, such as embroideries and prints prevalent across the country, while simultaneously appealing to international fashion trends. He and his team started by designing bags and laptop sleeves and producing them through local factories, as these products were the easiest to sell online. As they continued to grow and their online presence became more established, they expanded their range of products, diversifying into clothes, bags, footwear, and other accessories. Through joining V-Lab’s Startup Accelerator in 2017, they met mentors who supported them throughout their journey. “One of the greatest benets was getting to know other startups and companies who were incubated with us at the same time. We were able to exchange experiences with companies that were either the same size or slightly ahead,” Magdy said. Since launching, Palma has been led by a team of 60 people, working with 25 local factories. They have more than 120,000 customers, operate mainly in Egypt with plans of expanding to the Gulf, and are working on exporting 40 - 50% of their sales.Another Egyptian startup incorporating the Egyptian identity in its fashion and e-commerce brand is Sacer. 44Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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Sacer: An Egyptian Sustainable Clothing Brand with a Mission Beyond FashionIn a world where fast fashion dominates the industry, Sacer stands out as an Egyptian advocacy brand rmly committed to sustainability, ethical business practices, and eco-consciousness. The brand’s collections are made from 100% GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certied Egyptian cotton, upcycled from pre-consumer waste, resulting in soft, breathable, and lightweight fabrics with vibrant colors and a wide range of inclusive styles. Sacer’s supply chain is transparent and fully traceable from seed to closet, ensuring the brand’s impact on the environment and people remains positive throughout the startup’s journey.Sacer’s co-founders, Ali El Nawawi and May Kassem, come from diverse backgrounds. El Nawawi is a medical doctor, health economist, and public health practitioner who has worked for various UN agencies in several countries, working closely on issues such as human tracking, migrant health, health policy, and nutrition. On the other hand, Kassem is a psychologist with international experience in Swiss psychiatric hospitals, where she treated severe cases of mental illnesses. She also has the garment and textile industry in her blood from her family business.The idea of Sacer came to life when El Nawawi and Kassem, who are also husband and wife, made a conscious decision to start living more sustainably. They struggled to nd fashionable, eco-friendly, and affordable clothes that also carried meaningful messages. El Nawawi had initially started Sacer, rst known as Scarabaeus Sacer after the scarab from ancient Egyptian culture, in 2005, with a focus on advocacy. He wanted to create an Egyptian cotton brand that advocates for social causes, particularly issues related to religious tolerance and co-existence, which were making headlines at the time. El Nawawi then moved to Rome, where he worked for the World Food Programme’s (WFP) nutrition division. Still, he continued conducting focus groups to assess the willingness of consumers to pay for local garments with social value. Later on, he met Kassem, and after they got married, she suggested moving back to Egypt and re-launching Sacer, and that was when they started to make signicant strides. In 2018, Sacer was launched as an eco-conscious brand that upcycled materials to create stylish and sustainable streetwear clothing.4745Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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Sacer was built around two main pillars: people and the planet. The company prioritizes transparency in their supply chain, humane working conditions, and ensuring that the employees’ well-being is not compromised. They use organic Egyptian cotton, which does not undergo the use of pesticides or other chemicals that harm the environment. They also use natural dyes, GOTS-certied cotton, and processes that use scarce water and avoid plastisol, which releases microplastics and has harmful environmental effects. The manufacturing process of Sacer is lean; they reuse and reintroduce fabrics from one product to the other, and they upcycle materials from other factories to live up to their zero-waste production pledge.Reecting on their experience going through V-Lab’s Startup Accelerator, El Nawawi highlighted that being agile was one of the most important learnings they came out with. They learned that to strengthen their company’s core values, they needed to think about making ultimate use of their resources and to respond to market needs quickly. For example, producing face masks during the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic tipped their cash ow in their favor and allowed them to cruise through the pandemic’s pitfalls. Sacer developed multiple collaborations with organizations that share their concerns about people and the planet. They produced a lm on mental health and organized panel discussions around relevant topics. They collaborated with UNHCR to solicit artwork from refugee artists and have them printed on their garments, with a prot-share agreement in place with each artist. They conducted art workshops using meditation and visualization techniques to produce more artwork and collaborated with Dialogue in the Dark by Al Nour Wal Amal Association, sharing prots and promoting their work to support the association during the pandemic.During COP27, Sacer was invited to the blue zone with government leaders and politicians to discuss exporting challenges and share their experience as a green manufacturer in Egypt. Sacer is striving to build a global brand driven by a strong belief in the values the founders built the startup around and by the desire to position Egypt on the global sustainable fashion map. They are already selling garments in US exhibitions and have tapped into European and Gulf markets through various online channels.“The collaboration between DROSOS FOUNDATION and AUC V- Lab was instrumental in expanding innovation opportunities and carving paths for many aspiring entrepreneurs in Egypt. 64 startups have been supported on their growth journey with four case studies of successful startups documented to inspire others. An invaluable systemic change is that AUC V-Lab succeeded in bridging the gap between youth education and stimulating policy dialogue around a more enabling ecosystem in Egypt. I always loved this quote by Margaret Mead, which comes so much to live through the network founded by this collaboration: ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.’.” Dr. Wessam El BeihCountry Director (Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon) at DROSOS FOUNDATION46 Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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Easing Recurring Payments for B2B Businesses Q&A with Mohamed Farag, co-founder and CEO at Subsbase As running business operations became more and more challenging, the V-Lab Cycle 13 graduate Subsbase embarked on a journey to help businesses refocus on their core products and forget about the hassles of managing subscriptions and recurring payments. Through its unique technology, Subsbase helps businesses optimize payment collection and operations, gather analytics, and manage billing and client accounts. I started my career in the oil and gas eld in 2008. Before Subsbase, I also worked in software mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The journey began when I wanted to build my own business. I wanted to build a “micro SaaS,” and for this model to work, I needed ready-made tools around it. One of those tools was a subscription management platform to manage our recurring payments, integrations, reminders, etc. When we started looking, we couldn’t nd any in Egypt, UAE, KSA, or Jordan. When we asked how other businesses managed this, they said they had to register abroad, integrate with international payment gateways, and use international subscription management platforms.I was about to take the same path and build my business offshore, but then I realized this was something that the region lacked and needed. It was a pain for many companies, and everybody was creating a work-around. The realization was: let’s turn that into a product.How did you identify the need for your product in the B2B market?How did you develop the idea into a product that you could take to the market?A challenge that might sound common to all elds is hiring and trying to nd the right talent. However, a challenge specic to the B2B sector is trying to employ commercial professionals who can sell to businesses. Fortunately for our team, we had my Co-founder, Sherif Aziz. He has been selling enterprise software for quite some time, knows how it works, and was able to hire the right people to do it. However, nding people who can understand how a B2B cycle works, the decision-making process, who the inuencer is, how facts get analyzed for a deal to be closed from a business perspective, etc... Finding people who knew that and have done that was not easy.What are the biggest challenges you came across in the B2B ﬁeld? The rst MVP was primarily built by me. And the thing is, developers are bad designers, so it did not look appealing at all. Everyone was happy with it because it worked, so we kept building on it. Back then, we used to focus on functionality rst; then, we focused on it being more intuitive. Right now, we have the capacity to enhance the user interface, and we are working on a complete revamp that will be released this year. Not everyone understood what a subscription management service was. Business owners knew the pain but didn’t know they could outsource it. We had to do some market education and raise awareness around using a ready-made solution used by other businesses!48Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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It is challenging to get an MVP up and running and into the market and keep adding features to it in the enterprise software sector. I ran solo for a long time, but that was not sustainable. I had to fundraise to build a team and go to market.We approached funds that looked at the product and the team and who had the risk appetite for an innovation in this market. Luckily, we closed our pre-seed round with VENTURE MENA and Arzan Venture Capital, and later, Falak Startups and EFG EV Fintech also joined. We knocked on many doors and had tons of meetings and discussions until we landed our rst investor. We used the pre-seed funding to build a team, go to market, and sign customers. That is when we were able to fundraise for a seed round.Tell us about your funding journeyThe most signicant benet of joining V-Lab is guidance during the validation phase. My rst time, when I joined as a co-founder of a previous startup, provided a very good focus period on validation, reaching out to early adopters, and building my network. So, when the idea for Subsbase was born, I thought it would be good to have the support of the V-Lab team and their network instead of doing this on my own and with only my perspective.Another great benet was being around other founders in the cohort and discussing with coaches, mentors, and previous graduates. Everyone wants to help and support you to accelerate your growth.How was your experience as a second-time V-Lab entrepreneur? We are focusing on expansion. We already have clients abroad, and we are looking at and assessing different markets. We are also continuously adding more to the product and pushing the bar of the product’s capabilities in this space. We want to be able to cater to different users with the same sets of features that we have now. Another thing that we have been working on for a long time is building the thought leadership and knowledge around the subscription economy, how it works, and what is different about building a subscription-based business, so we are planning to invest more time and effort in educating the market.What is next for Subsbase?You need to understand how to recharge your internal battery! For me, it is sports and family time. Intentional breaks - if you can call them that - are key! Take an intentional break and do what you know will recharge your battery; don’t just use your break as a painkiller.How have you avoided burnout throughout your journey?5149Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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Tapping into the Insurtech SpaceEgypt’s insurance industry has been active for more than a century. While this traditional sector can offer exciting expansion opportunities through technology integration, the space remains challenging for entrepreneurs attempting to venture into it.For years, insurance technology (insurtech) has been a focus area for V-Lab. In 2021, insurance penetration rates in Egypt remained as low as 1% compared to a global average gure of 6.8% in spite of the industry’s year-on-year high growth rates. While the complex space remains challenging to tap into, the potential value of insurtech solutions for the community and the economy could be immense. Amanleek is one of the startups that have been working on simplifying insurance for users since 2019. Across their combined 10 years of experience as insurance sales brokers, Mohab Aboueita and Mohamed Mansour observed the pains consumers suffered while purchasing and using insurance policies. With Aboueita’s university colleague Ihab ElSokary, who had experience in market research, the team of three co-founded Amanleek. The startup aimed to help customers understand insurance policies, compare between offerings and make insurance more accessible for all. At the time of Amanleek’s launch, insurance companies worldwide recorded ve trillion USD in gross premiums. After conducting intensive market research, Amanleek’s team identied pain points when it came to transparency and accessibility in the insurance market in Egypt. “Amanleek aims to inspire condence in insurance as a reliable safety net for millions through simple, relevant, and highly innovative insurance offerings that can be trusted across our region,” explains ElSokary.The startup connects insurance companies with insurance seekers, acting as a digital broker that expands the companies’ market and facilitates the experience for insurance seekers through digital presence and customer support.“The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is a rm believer in the power of entrepreneurship and nancial inclusion to build a dynamic private sector and to transform societies. Through our partnership with AUC Venture Lab, we committed to creating a pipeline of ntech startups that enabled the launch of innovative nancial products and leveraged private sector nancing to scale their businesses in order to help advance the nancial inclusion agenda in Egypt. Over the past four years, we supported more than 35 startups to complete AUC Venture Lab’s Fintech Accelerator, reach close to a quarter of a million users through the newly launched nancial products, and raise close to $7.5 million in additional nancing. We are proud of these commendable achievements, which would not have been possible without the commitment, dedication, and hard work of our valued partner AUC Venture Lab.”Menan OmarOperations Ocer at IFCMaha HusseinSenior Operations Ocer at IFC50Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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The startup launched its pilot website for two weeks, focusing on car and travel insurance. Throughout this phase, Amanleek’s team garnered 700 website visits and 18 leads with minimal ad spending. Meanwhile, the startup started getting noticed by industry leaders.In September 2019, Amanleek joined AUC Venture Lab’s Fintech Accelerator with the intention of rening the business model according to the identied market opportunity and getting mentorship. ElSokary recalled that the team decided to seek V-Lab based on the accelerator’s track record of successful startups and equity-free services. During their time at V-Lab, Amanleek joined InsurHack, a three-day hackathon organized by GIZ, the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA), insight2impact, and AUC Venture Lab to bring together entrepreneurs, techies, and designers to collaborate on developing business ideas that address challenges facing the insurance industry. The hackathon featured the participation of 12 startups working on solutions to build data analysis and assessment tools for insurance companies, transform the insurance agent experience, reach new segments, and create a competitive edge for SMEs through insurance. “Throughout InsurHack, we got introduced to insurance companies and regulators, which helped us get the necessary licensing to start operating in 2020,” shared ElSokary. The hackathon posed an opportunity for the startup’s team to network with insurance experts, garner further market insights, and dig deeper into their business. He added that in addition to how much they beneted from InsurHack, mentorship, exposure, and pitching support were also highlights of their V-Lab experience. By the end of 2019, Amanleek received its license from the Financial Regulatory Authority to sell insurance online, and it began operating in 2020. One year later, Amanleek won the North Africa regional nals of the Startup World Cup. In addition to the regulatory challenges of being a rst mover, Amanleek had to experiment with different business models until they arrived at the model that would best allow them to serve their customers. They understood that many of their customers’ pain came from the lack of information, accessibility issues, and complicated claims processes. Accordingly, the startup’s team now offers over-the-phone support that is available from the beginning of the signup process all the way to claim ling. Amanleek has made it a goal to not only educate insurance buyers about their options but also to build trust with them that lasts throughout their entire insurance journey. In May 2023, Amanleek launched its insurance brokerage company and expanded partnerships that aim to avail insurance with ntech companies like Khazna and Paynas. To date, the startup has insured more than 20,000 individuals and their assets.5351Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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“Being part of V-Lab’s community initially tied to my job’s objectives, but it became an eye-opening journey. The engagement with each cohort expanded my knowledge of ntech and nancial inclusion. Moreover, my engagement with many startups at V-Lab inspired a career shift into the ntech ecosystem. One of many memorable moments that I consider very special was a ntech hackathon, staying overnight to support participants who were determined on success; the sight of sleeping bags and shifts between team members to nish their fresh ideas’ coding was very enriching and inspiring nevertheless the friendships and collaborations that came out of this experience was priceless. I always consider myself part of the V-Lab team!” Hany SolimanRegional Head and Operating Partner for GCC and Africa at PayTabs5553Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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From Idea to AcquisitionQ&A with Sohayb Baset, co-founder at PH StorePH Store is a startup that optimizes the pharmaceutical supply chain process, saving pharmacies and suppliers time and money. They joined the second cycle of Startup Launchpad in 2020 to further develop their idea before getting acquired by a leading healthtech startup.Back then, we were not trying to fundraise. Although we were making around ve million EGP in monthly revenues and receiving over 300 daily orders, we believed we needed more time to become investment-ready. In October 2021, V-Lab and TIEC offered us the chance to exhibit at Techne Summit. It was our rst time exhibiting at an ecosystem event, and we wanted to get more exposure for PH Store. I remember we were not sure what to prepare or what to expect. We ended up spending three days at our booth, meeting lots of interesting people and talking to everyone about our startup until someone from Grinta, a Fintech-enabled B2B platform that aims to modernize the pharmaceutical supply chain, passed by and said they were interested in connecting and knowing more about our business. We met them again later at a side event for the healthtech ecosystem, and we scheduled our rst meeting when we got back to Cairo. This was the beginning of the acquisition deal. We spent almost two months in meetings and discussions until we decided this was the right move for PH Store.I am a pharmacist. I graduated in 2013. Since my second year in college, I started to work in the pharmaceutical industry and got exposed to the whole value chain. My business partner, Islam El-Naggar, also opened a medical supplies store. That exposed us to the pharmacist’s daily purchasing process, which consumes time and effort and doesn’t always yield the best results.We wanted to offer pharmacists a one-stop shop for all their needs with a user-friendly experience. We started in 2018 in Beheira with eight clients, and we did most processes manually at that time to validate the business opportunity. Later on, we built our application, expanded the team, and step by step, we reached 7,000 clients across seven governorates.What inspired you to start PH Store?Tell us the story behind your acquisitionIn 2020, I started learning about the entrepreneurship eld. I heard about a pitching competition in KSA to which we were encouraged to apply, and we were asked to submit a pitch deck. I started to ask strangers for help on social media, which is when I got very passionate about this community. Everyone was helpful and keen on sharing knowledge and valuable contacts, and this is how I got introduced to Youssef Moemen from AUC Angels’ team. The rst time I reached out to Moemen, we talked for nearly an hour. He gave us many tips and recommended that we joined V-Lab. Since we were not eligible for the Startup Accelerator yet, we joined Startup Launchpad, which was more suitable for the phase we were at.We joined V-Lab to understand the ecosystem and its dynamics, the basics of entrepreneurship, and how to run a startup and learn how to apply this knowledge to grow and scale our business. We also wanted to get to know other founders innovating in different elds and learn from their experience. Startup Launchpad helped us get matched with mentors, receive lots of feedback, and connect with other founders.How did you hear about Startup Launchpad?54 Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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Put yourself and your company in the hands of a subject-matter expert. With their experience, even if they adjust your compass by one centimeter, this will save you an unimaginable amount of time, effort, and money! I know it can be exciting to build your own startup and experiment with everything. However, when you ask for help, you do not have to reinvent the wheel. Having a beginner’s mindset is as important as nding the right people to mentor you and share feedback. Listening to what they have to say and setting aside your own experience and bias is very important. I cannot stress this enough. Finding the right mentors and guidance may be hard and expensive sometimes, but they will help you reach far beyond your individual capacity.What is the most important lesson you learned while running PH Store from idea to acquisition?5755Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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The First V-Lab UnicornIn spring of 2017, three co-founders worked hard at the American University in Cairo’s New Cairo campus, prototyping their alternative transportation solution. Five years later, Swvl became the rst Egyptian unicorn to be listed on NASDAQ. After completing his petroleum engineering degree from The American University in Cairo, Mostafa Kandil, Swvl’s co-founder and CEO, joined Careem, where he excelled. However, his entrepreneurial heart had other desires. He dreamt of building his own business, and that dream came to life when he noticed a gap in the transportation market. Joining forces with Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh, the team started building a technology startup to ll Cairo’s transportation gap. Nouh became the COO, based on his background in operations management at maritime corporations, while Sabbah claimed the CTO role, building the technology infrastructure. Together, the trio formed a diverse team with complementary expertise across industries, allowing them to cater to the local population and move faster than other startups. With Egypt’s vast population and transportation infrastructure limitations, commuting had become a daily struggle for many. While public transportation options were affordable, they were inconvenient, and private ride-hailing services were limited and expensive for daily commuters. Swvl’s team recognized the market gap and found an exciting opportunity in available tourism eets that were not being fully utilized. Kandil, Nouh, and Sabbah started testing the viability of their solution and the value they could offer commuters. Kandil and his co-founders joined AUC Venture Lab’s Startup Accelerator in February 2017. While at V-Lab, Swvl’s team worked on rening their business model and testing their services, launching their app and rst bus line in Cairo. After rigorous validation and market research, Swvl proved the viability of its business model. With a focus on the Egyptian market, the startup experienced rapid growth, catching the eye of both users and investors and quickly dominating a signicant share of the market. However, as competition increased, Swvl set its sights on expanding beyond Egypt.Two years later, the startup closed the biggest funding round for an Egyptian startup at $42 million and started expanding into Kenya and Pakistan. In 2020, the startup started offering corporate solutions, and by 2021, it was present in six countries across the globe. The founders had a dream of reaching 1 billion bookings and were chasing that dream. The startup grew drastically by acquiring various ride-hailing and transportation solutions in Europe, Latin America, and MENA. In 2021, the startup announced its intention to go public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger deal that valued Swvl at $1.5 billion, a historical turning point for the region.Following the merger, Swvl’s team celebrated an iconic milestone as the startup got listed on NASDAQ for the rst time. Swvl was the rst Egyptian tech unicorn to list on NASDAQ. The startup acquired a technology company in the same year and started embedding ntech services.56Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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Despite unprecedented growth, the startup faced signicant challenges with COVID-19 lockdowns affecting its user base and slowing down its growth. With the pandemic and the following global economic uncertainties, Swvl’s team had to shrink back to the local market, ensuring sustainability and focusing on consolidating its position in Egypt while navigating the obstacles. Swvl’s journey remains an inspiration for many entrepreneurs. The startup paved the way for other startups in the region, becoming the rst company from Egypt’s technology sector to get listed on NASDAQ and get remarkable valuations. Moreover, Swvl broke funding records, showcasing the MENA region’s immense funding, growth, and innovation potential. 57Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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Exits, Mergers, and AcquisitionsWhile exits, mergers, and acquisitions may be far on the map for most early-stage startups, over the course of V-Lab’s 10 years, our entrepreneurs have successfully built startups, acquired other businesses for growth and expansion, or exited their own. Here are snapshots of some of the exits, mergers and acquisitions over the years:The Fashion Kingdom (TFK), the all-in-one fashion aggregator building an ecosystem to revolutionize the fashion industry in the MENA region, acquired AUC Angels portfolio startup OPIO. The strategic acquisition aimed to complement TFK’s marketplace infrastructure with OPIO’s direct-to-consumer business model. Together, TFK and OPIO hope to reduce the reliance on imports and international franchises by building, acquiring, and growing diversied vertical, culturally-relevant fashion brands. TFK has a primary market focus on Egypt and KSA due to these markets’ vast potential and market size.TFK X OPIOWith more than 1.2 million orders processed, worth 320 million EGP and 200 active terminals, XPoint, an end-to-end payment solutions provider that streamlines operations for payment functions and other processes, was acquired by Lyve. XPoint graduated from V-Lab Startup Accelerator’s 20th cycle with its rst product, Foodpoint, an AI-powered, full-scope sales and resource management system for restaurants. Lyve is designing an ecosystem of integrated B2B SaaS solutions that cover every touchpoint in the value chain - from order to payment to delivery. Headquartered in UAE, Lyve is operational in 22 countries. The acquisition allows XPoint to reach other markets and bring value to many more businesses.Lyve X XPointGrinta is an Egyptian ntech-enabled B2B tech platform digitizing the pharmaceutical supply chain. Grinta acquired PH Store, a Startup Launchpad graduate that built a digital platform to help pharmacists with their supply chain in northern Egypt. By acquiring PH Store and another company, Grinta expanded across seven governorates in Egypt, with over 14,000 registered pharmacies on its platform and over 20,000 SKUs.Grinta X PH StoreSwvl provides transformative tech-enabled mass transit solutions, offering intercity, intracity, B2B, and B2G transportation. In addition to its IPO listing in 2022 via the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital, Swvl fueled its expansion into various international markets by acquiring native players. Such acquisitions include door2door in Central Europe, Urban in Mexico, Viapool in Argentina and Chile, and Shotl in Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacic. Swvl offered its services across more than 135 cities in 20+ countries.Swvl58 Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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The V-Lab Model61The V-Lab Model10 Years of ImpactThe V-Lab ModelRology, a leading teleradiology startup and a graduate of V-Lab’s Startup Accelerator, acquired Arkan United, a teleradiology provider based in Saudi Arabia, in 2023. Rology is an on-demand teleradiology platform that uses AI and cloud computing to deliver reports within 12 hours or 60 minutes for emergency cases. While the startup is already present across nine Middle Eastern and African markets, this transaction came as part of its expansion plans into KSA. To date, Rology has saved more than 600,000 lives through its unique solution. Rology X Arkan UnitedOrcas, the edtech startup offering tailored learning experiences to international schools’ students and a graduate of V-Lab’s Startup Accelerator, was acquired by Baims. Baims is a Kuwait-based edtech rm providing online pre-recorded courses to university and high school students in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. As a result of the acquisition, Baims will be incorporating Orcas’ personalized tutoring services into its platform.Orcas X Baims59Accelerating Growth of Egyptian Startups

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Fintech and Financial Inclusion: Revolutionizing Traditional Sectors Klickit, ElGameya, and Neqabty meet real nancial needs by offering digital solutions to facilitate nancial inclusion.In Egypt’s, approximately 300 billion EGP circulate across education institutions, with few digital solutions to cater to such a vast movement of funds. Both public and private schools rely on parents to adhere to school installments several times a year to maintain their cash ows. Delayed payments, lack of digital payment methods for parents, and slow school accounting processes make it challenging for schools to manage their cash ows and cover their capital expenditures. Seeing this as an opportunity, Saeed Talaat and his co-founders - Hashim Ibrahim, Youssef Galal, and Walid Aboelnour - founded Klickit, an online payment management platform that aspired to digitize Egypt’s education sector. “When we started in 2017, we would knock on doors at schools, and we found a lot of resistance; many did not understand the value of online or digital payments. They wanted to see the money in their hands, so it was dicult to get customer buy-in at rst,” said Talaat, Klickit’s CEO. Klickit: Unlocking Opportunity in the Education Sector Egypt has made strides over the last couple of years when it comes to nancial inclusion, with the Central Bank of Egypt reporting that about 36.8 million citizens have access to bank accounts, representing a 115% growth rate over the last six years. Financial regulators and banks are starting to work alongside ntech startups to support Egypt's unbanked population in accessing technological innovations that facilitate their lives and cushion the vulnerable members of society against external shocks. Sector by sector and industry by industry are witnessing startups develop innovations that solve social problems and help thousands tap into nancial resources to build assets, increase security, and reduce economic vulnerability. 62 Championing Nascent Sectors

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“In the rst year and a half, we focused on research: we would sit with school accountants to understand their challenges more deeply. We tried to address all types and categories of schools as well. We also worked to educate the parents who were paying school fees. We focused on how businesses could understand our solution, as well as the parents, so that they would both continue to use our platform,” he added.At V-Lab, Talaat and his team felt that the exposure they received added signicant value to their experience. “AUC V-Lab is a very benecial accelerator for all early-stage startups.” Klickit developed its model to offer a secure payment management system for educational institutions and a hassle-free payment experience for parents. They created a comprehensive platform to improve nancial processes and empower schools’ nancial systems on one end while increasing educational affordability on the other by making payments more exible and affordable to parents. Klickit has showcased the value and power of partnerships in the ntech industry across its last four years of operation. One of the early adopters of Klickit was Paymob, and they supported Klickit in becoming the payment service provider at a time when the ntech industry was quite nascent. Through partnering with valU, Klickit supported parents in paying school fees across 12-month installments. Another important partnership with EFG Hermes Corp-Solutions empowered schools by offering leasing services that covered their cash ow needs, enabling them to build assets and purchase school equipment. Since its launch, Klickit has worked with the government to manage public school payments and offered a payment management system to 400+ private educational institutions. To date, over 55,000 schools with more than 20 million students have access to Klickit’s system, and more than 1 billion EGP have been processed through the platform. Looking forward, Klickit plans on offering more value-added services and becoming the one-stop platform for all academic needs.“Over the past 10 years, we have enjoyed seeing the value and support V-Lab has provided its ecosystem. At A15, we have had the pleasure of working with and investing alongside V-Lab at various occasions and strongly believe that they are one of the most valuable accelerators around. We look forward to being part of the community and working alongside their companies.”Karim BesharaGeneral Partner at A156563Championing Nascent Sectors

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Access to nancial resources is not limited to school fees, and many Egyptians struggle to pay for lump sum vital expenses such as covering the cost of a health procedure, supporting a relative in getting married, or starting a business. According to Ahmed Abdeen, founder and CEO of ElGameya, Egyptians have been engaging in rotating savings and credit associations for over 1,000 years. Also referred to locally as a “gam’eya,” this involves a group of people pitching a xed amount of money into a shared pot on a regular basis, and members of this group take turns withdrawing the amount of money. This form of savings group allows individuals to pay bulk expenses that they may have otherwise been unable to cover alone.Abdeen’s idea to digitize the concept of a gam’eya came about when he was planning for his own marriage. He joined V-Lab in the summer of 2018 to explore the idea further. ElGameya is an online platform that provides microcredit and collaborative lending solutions to individuals based on the ROSCA model. The platform digitizes the entire process from forming and organizing the fund size and identifying its members to planning transparent payment schedules for all users, all the way to facilitating the actual payments via reliable payment gateways. After graduating from V-Lab’s Fintech Accelerator, ElGameya secured a pre-seed investment from AUC Angels and Cairo Angels in early 2021. “The experience and vibes at V-Lab are what we really needed as rst-time entrepreneurs,” recalls Abdeen. It was there that he met his long-term mentor Amr Aboelazm, co-founder, vice chairman, and CEO of Erada Micro Finance, who mentored at V-Lab and angel invested. As one of the mentors and investors in ElGameya, Aboelazm introduced Abdeen to nancial institutions. “I have worn both the hat of the mentor and investor in my collaboration with V-Lab,” shared Aboelazm. “It is a very objective institution which is run by good people. What I noticed is that students and youth, whether from AUC or outside, enjoy the community and learn a lot.”In 2021, Aboelazm joined ElGameya as non-executive Chairman. Abdeen and Aboelazm meet once a month and speak three to four times a month, offering Abdeen a space to seek guidance and advice. Aboelazm also meets ElGameya’s team and attends shareholder meetings every quarter. This allows ElGameya’s team to interact regularly with Aboelazm and discuss updates and opportunities as they arise.Following exploration, Abdeen became aware of ElGameya’s selling point: reaching the unbanked segment of the Egyptian population that many nancial institutions were still trying to tap into.ElGameya: Formalizing an Egyptian Funding Tradition“AUC Venture Lab has been an example of improvement and gradual progression, starting from the early days to developing economically-viable and technically-feasible business models and preparing entrepreneurs for real world action. Watching V-Lab create more and more practical and realistic businesses has been a great part of my journey with them over the past ve years.”Ashraf Nashed Fintech Consultant and V-Lab Mentor64Championing Nascent Sectors

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About 35% of ElGameya’s portfolio is from Upper Egypt, and the gam’eya circles are primarily run by women who have experience in organizing gam’eyas across the country. “We recruit ElGameya ambassadors, who are generally women who organize between 20 and 30 gam’eyas per year,” shared Abdeen. “Through their informal networks, they do credit scoring based on the reputation capital of those seeking to be a part of their gam’eyas. We looked for these women and invited them to be ambassadors in exchange for incentives. This empowers them since they are largely working from within their homes.” On the other hand, ElGameya also worked to secure deals with nancial institutions to offer formal nancial inclusion for the app users. “Persistence was a key tool to navigate the nancial sector,” Abdeen noted. “To close with a bank, I spoke with 13 different banks simultaneously, at a very high level. These conversations would lead to deeper discussions on nancial projections and technological architecture and eventually to landing deals with a select few.”ElGameya currently has 46 employees and 350 ambassadors and has organized over 1,000 gam’eya circles for 10,000 users, with 100,000 registered users on the platform. 65Championing Nascent Sectors

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While Klickit is digitizing payments in the education sector and ElGameya is offering nancial services to the unbanked, Neqabty digitizes the services Egyptian syndicates provide to their members. They built web and mobile apps to enable syndicate members access to various services like medical, real estate, training, employment, and more, all made available entirely online. Mohamed Gamal, Neqabty’s founder and CEO, was working on a pension-related project in the e-nance sector when he rst came across the opportunity of digitizing syndicate transactions. He saw how a solution like pension cards made life much easier for users wanting to access their monthly disbursements and started thinking of other areas where a similar solution could be applicable. Syndicates were the rst space he investigated due to the vast array of services they offer and because they also cater to an older population that can nd great value in replacing oine transactions with online, more accessible ones. Neqabty: Digitizing Syndicates’ Services and ProcessesGamal joined the rst cycle of V-Lab’s Fintech Accelerator, and he credits the V-Lab team for support in understanding Neqabty’s value proposition and building the business on solid foundations from the early stages. “V-Lab helped me validate my business; they were a perfect thought partner,” he added. Gamal continued to engage with V-Lab as a mentor years after he graduated from the program, and he worked with other aspiring entrepreneurs on dening and growing their businesses in various sectors, including ntech. Today, Neqabty already covers 25% of all Egyptian syndicates, including the engineers’ and teachers’ syndicates. They ran over 310,000 successful payment transactions on their platforms, won an Innovation Fund Award, and came rst place in Visa’s Visa Everywhere competition. “Over the past 10 years, AUC V-Lab propelled many entrepreneurs and innovations that led to notable successful names in the “–tech” neologisms, changing the face of nancial services in the region. By fostering collaboration and providing mentorship to young entrepreneurs, AUC V-Lab is helping to create a healthy, thriving ecosystem for ntechs, making it a partner that Visa is committed to supporting for its integral role in the region’s economic growth.” Malak El BabaVisa Country Manager in Egypt66Championing Nascent Sectors

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3Klickit, ElGameya, and Neqabty embody a small portion of the impact seen by ntech startups over the last few years following the pandemic and increased focus on nancial inclusion. According to Aboelazm, ntech startups have an unmissable opportunity. “The nancial situation will be dicult. From what I’m seeing, there is a silver lining: ntech startups need to align with mainstream nancial institutions to meet the same growth goals,” added Aboelazm. “There was once a dogma that if you were a regulated nancial institution such as a bank, you were less innovative to new nancial solutions. Nowadays, the situation is changing, and we can nd win-win situations through partnerships, and the ntech ecosystem will need to come together.”As nancial regulators, banks, and ntech companies continue to collaborate to serve Egypt’s unbanked population, more families are better equipped to deal with the nancial risk and uncertainty that comes with leading decent lives.67Championing Nascent Sectors

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Scaling Impact: Driving Green Innovations to Unexpected Places Two Egyptian startups are leveraging modern technologies to offer new, innovative, green solutions to age-old problems in some of Egypt’s most traditional sectors.Egypt is the top plastic polluter in the MENA region, producing more than 5.4 million metric tons of waste annually, with reportedly only 15% of its plastic waste considered recyclable. Finding opportunities to solve such a nationwide issue can substantially contribute to reducing waste in the plastic sector. This has been the mission of TileGreen, a startup that has invented new technology and processes that turn low-grade plastic waste from the remaining 85% of non-recyclable waste into an alternative material that can be used to produce high-value and high-performing building materials. Their rst product was interlocking tiles that are twice as strong as their cement equivalent, 20 times better in water absorption, and can withstand six times the cold, according to TileGreen’s team. Entering a market as big and traditional as construction is intimidating, particularly for a startup in its early stages. “The product we are making is 100% green, that is a fact. But this market has been operating for centuries, and the need for a green product is a very new one”, said Amr Shalan, TileGreen’s CEO and co-founder. “Many key players in this industry do not have an urgent need to go green, and many of those who do are not yet sure how to do it.”Shalan and his team began by responding to old market needs rather than highlighting the innovation they were bringing. They did this by focusing on marketing their product as high-performing and cost-effective, in addition to it being environmentally friendly and that it reduces plastic waste. “That was the golden formula we focused on,” said Shalan. “And many other products fail to enter the market because they only satisfy two of these three components.”TileGreen: Producing Building Materials From Non-recyclable PlasticTileGreen’s team went above and beyond to convince potential customers of their product. “It took plenty of on-the-ground testing, and we had to apply for certicates that are not usually required, but we did so anyway to address our customers’ worries and concerns. We had to walk slowly next to them, step by step,” added Shalan. They segmented their addressable market and started with smaller projects that suited their capacity. They began with small contractors and simultaneously bid for small projects with large developers to demonstrate their product’s value and qualify themselves for larger projects later in their pipeline.TileGreen joined V-Lab’s Startup Accelerator at the validation stage, when they had a minimum viable product (MVP) and were looking for ways to commercialize it. They joined the 16-week program to launch and grow their business using evidence-based entrepreneurship and lean startup methods. Looking back at his time at V-Lab, Shalan believes the biggest added value of the experience was the networking. “We already raised one of our rst rounds of investments during the demo day. This started the real TileGreen,” continued Shalan, “It kickstarted our production facility and technology, and then everything else followed.” Shalan continued to highlight the pivotal role V-Lab’s network played in TileGreen’s development and emphasized how crucial the post-program support and linkages have been.68Championing Nascent Sectors

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TileGreen went on to accomplish notable achievements and milestones in just a couple of years. They led for a patent at the US Patent Oce, signed sizable contracts with large corporations like SODIC and Henkel Construction, and formed a partnership with Nestle Egypt to secure themselves a consistent supply of non-recyclable plastic waste. In the future, the startup is looking at an asset-light expansion through a franchise manufacturing model, focusing on their core strengths: technology and processes development and outsourcing the manufacturing operation. According to Shalan, the goal is to standardize production by integrating software and automation into the manufacturing process to create a standard smart manufacturing system.Accelerating their R&D is another priority that will allow them to introduce new high-performing green products to a market whose size is estimated at around $1 trillion, according to Shalan. TileGreen’s direct impact is twofold: on one end, they salvage low-value plastic waste that otherwise ends up in illegal landlls or polluting natural resources like the Nile River and the Mediterranean Sea, and on the other hand, they offer a high-performing, economic, green alternative to the construction materials manufacturing industry, one that is costing the world more than 40% of its global energy-related carbon emissions.“Living every detail of the epic journey of TileGreen was a privilege. It started less than two years ago with one lab-made tile. Today, having an operational facility, quality production, and conrmed sales with big names such as Nestle and SODIC are all achieved milestones. With the clear plans in place for automation, geographic expansion, and other growth opportunities, I know it is a matter of time only for TileGreen to change the face of green building material globally,” said Tarek Roushdy, CEO and founder of UI Investments and V-Lab mentor. 69Championing Nascent Sectors

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Inecient water management is a global problem, and it is particularly concerning in Egypt. In recent years, Egypt reportedly lost around 29% of its yearly 10.7 billion cubic meters of drinking water supply because of an aging network of pipelines, as well as illegal construction. This equals 3.1 billion cubic meters, or enough water to ll up 1.24 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.According to Mohamed Abdelkader, founder and CEO of Wai Technologies, water utilities have a huge task, especially with an aging infrastructure that does not have enough access to data. Wai Technologies is an AI-based solution that identies the pain points in water distribution networks. Through using industrial Internet of Things (IoT) technology, the solution detects water ow and pressure and analyzes this data to understand better where and when leakages take place. Abdelkader shared that Wai Technologies started as an R&D project that developed into a full-edged business once they found a dire need for the technology. Validating the product meant they needed to partner with water distribution networks and work directly with the government to prove their technological innovation’s value. “It was all about partnerships and how to t within the existing supply chain,” shared Abdelkader. “We sought big partners that have a similar vision. One such partner was Egypt’s Unied National Network for Emergency and Public Safety, where we stepped in as a provider in the water sector. We also partnered with corporations like Huawei. We must give them an added value that comes on top of what they are used to and integrate it within their existing systems. Businesses do not like change, so we need to make sure that this is not a radical one.” According to Abdelkader, V-Lab supported transitioning from an R&D project to a startup with a solid business model. Since he and his team came from an academic background, they needed business mentorship and industry connections. They found V-Lab nested within the AUC academic community as the perfect partner to bridge academia and business.“I really appreciate the role that V-Lab played with Wai Technologies. They helped us with key strategic partnerships and in accessing seed funding. We t within several technological industries, and they are always introducing us at events,” added Abdelkader.Wai Technologies are currently deploying their system within several water companies, expecting that they will be able to estimate water savings in six months to a year. They are also expanding in terms of types of clients and projects, partnering with the government sector, private sector, urban developers, and smart communities and campuses. Given the need for this technology across the MENA region, some partnerships have also been established outside of Egypt. “It’s all about the data,” concluded Abdelkader. “As we continue to gather data, we can improve our research and development for the AI algorithms that we use and add further value for the companies that we work with.”Wai Technologies: Identifying Leakages in Water Distribution Networks70 Championing Nascent Sectors

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“As we celebrate AUC Venture Lab’s remarkable 10-year journey, I am honored to reect on our transformative partnership during my tenure as a program manager at Hivos in 2016. Through our collaboration, we have empowered and supported tech-based social enterprises with the potential to ignite job creation across Egypt. As a result, over the course of three years, our partnership has contributed to the creation of over 1,500 jobs for youth. Dr. Ayman Ismail, a visionary leader, and his exceptional team have been at the forefront of Egypt’s tech startup movement, demonstrating unwavering dedication and innovation. For most of what makes it stand out, Egypt’s startup tech ecosystem owes a signicant debt to V-Lab and its team.”Ahmed SamehProgram Manager at IKEA Foundation71Championing Nascent Sectors

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Transforming Healthcare withTech SolutionsDiscover Egyptian startups transforming healthcare through tech-powered diagnosis, convenient marketplaces,and innovative products. According to the World Health Organization, about two-thirds of the world’s population does not have access to radiology services. These radiology services encompass x-rays or physical wave imagery such as ultrasound scans that can produce vital diagnoses for patients and ultimately save lives. Throughout the 21st century, scanning technologies have made huge advancements in eciency and speed. However, the number of radiologists who can interpret these scans has not increased at the same rate, leading to delays in issuing patients’ diagnostic reports. This divide is unequal across geographies; regions in Africa and the Middle East experience scarce numbers of radiologists across subspecialties, and patients living in remote areas with little to no access to these services suffer the most. Amr AboDraiaa had been familiar with this problem while working in the health management sector in Egypt and noticed that with technological improvements, it was becoming easier to match scans to radiologists for diagnosis. He also realized that Egypt had a good representation of radiologists across subspecialties compared to other neighboring countries. The only problem was making that match happen and meeting the growing demand for radiology services with an appropriate number of radiologists willing to offer diagnosis. AboDraiaa discussed this problem with Bassam Khallaf, Mahmoud Eldefrawy, and Moaaz Hossam, who agreed that the idea was worth exploring and would eventually join him in co-founding the startup. They joined V-Lab in the summer of 2017 and underwent the V-Lab bootcamp Rology: Saving Lives One Diagnosis at a Timeto develop their solution. The team remembers the bootcamp as a stepping stone to consolidating and formalizing what became their startup, Rology.Rology was launched to bridge the gap by offering an on-demand, web-based, two-sided teleradiology platform. Through zero set-up cost and 24/7 on-demand access to radiologists of all subspecialties, the platform uses AI technology to match scans with radiologists, offering diagnoses for cold cases within 12 hours and for emergencies in about 60 minutes. Upon joining V-Lab Startup Accelerator, Rology’s team started working on building a business model and ultimately setting up their operations. “V-Lab helped us sharply identify the DNA of Rology,” shared AboDraiaa. “I remember back then, Dr. Ayman Ismail asked a fundamental question: Are you building a technology company or a medical service company? This question helped us dig deeper and decide that we were, in fact, a medical service company that was strongly backed by technology, which guided a lot of our business decisions.” Through mentorship and networking at V-Lab, AboDraiaa and his team met their rst investor. “For me personally, joining V-Lab offered me a safe space to share anything condentially,” he added. “All the mentors and team members were open for us to discuss our ideas with them.”Since its launch in 2017, Rology has employed 50 people and has offered services to 150 medical institutions across nine countries. This October, they celebrated having diagnosed more than 750,000 cases, saving their lives. They have managed to expand in the most 72Championing Nascent Sectors

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remote areas within countries that direly need radiology services, such as Yemen and Congo. They have access to more than 120 radiologists, 80% from Egypt. In 2022, Rology won the Ninja Award from the Japan International Cooperation Agency for using AI to detect COVID-19 in x-ray scans. Due to the dire need for radiology services and the ease and speed of Rology’s solution, the startup quickly acquired adoption across markets. “Through the AI technology that we use on our platform, we can match the scans to the right radiologist, a process that could have taken days or weeks,” shared Salma Sakr, chief growth ocer at Rology. Rology partnered with Meru Teaching and Referral Hospital, a Ministry of Health hospital in Kenya, granting the hospital 24/7 access to subspecialized radiologists. This hospital is considered one of the main hubs for radiology services in the northern and eastern parts of Kenya, offering an array of services such as MRI, CT, mammogram, and orthopantomogram (OPG) x-ray scans. However, it is often a tedious journey for radiologists to reach the hospital from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, taking them six hours and having to drive on dangerous roads that have led to many fatalities. As a result, only one radiologist is stationed at the radiology unit in the hospital, serving patients from ve cities. Since adopting Rology’s service, Meru Hospital has expanded the number of radiologists available to diagnose scans produced by the radiology unit, covering more patients across 11 subspecialties. In their third month of using Rology, the number of interpreted diagnostic reports jumped by 80%, saving more lives. Rology’s story is one of persistent focus on growing impact and saving more lives. In the coming years, they will focus on increasing their brand awareness and further expanding their service offerings across the Middle East and Africa (MEA). In August 2023, the startup announced landing funding from Philips Foundation to help with its plans. “Our product speaks for itself,” added Sakr, “we are thinking about how to enter new markets and guring out our marketing plan for these regions.” “Diagnosis is the cornerstone for every patient’s treatment. Without proper diagnosis, the patient will get an incorrect treatment, or it will be delayed, leading to deadly consequences,” shared AboDraiaa. “Our main focus is the MEA region; this is where the pain is the most, and there is huge instability when it comes to medical services.”“I have been a mentor with V-Lab since 2015. AUC Venture Lab’s community is the spark that developed my urge to engage heavily in the ecosystem and eventually launch Cubit Ventures. Thanks to V-Lab, we got to meet and invest in Rology, a high-impact business that has already delivered over 750,000 reports across nine markets.” Rafeh SalehFounding Partner at Cubit Ventures73Championing Nascent Sectors

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In 2017, Ahmed Yahia, a civil engineer by training with amassed experience in business development and management, noticed that his wife - who is a dentist - struggled to secure medical supplies for her practice as she completed her master’s degree at Ain Shams University. Digging deeper into this problem with his co-founder Saad Saleh, they realized that the medical supplies purchased by clinics in Egypt were often counterfeit products, were not readily available in the market, or were dicult to secure every month because of over-inated prices. In addition, clinics had limited access to nance and were in dire need of payment plans to support their cash ow. Yahia and Saleh agreed that these pain points were worth studying and solving through the launch of DentaCarts. DentaCarts is an online mobile and web platform that offers a marketplace for dentists to procure their medical supplies from trusted vendors with ease, convenience and transparency. As CEO and CTO of DentaCarts, respectively, Yahia and Saleh joined V-Lab in 2018. Yahia remembers his time at V-Lab as a gateway to the startup ecosystem, giving them access to venture capitalists, angel investors, mentorship, and advice that helped them build a proper business model and create a clear value proposition. Throughout their time at V-Lab, DentaCarts’ team also connected with banks and payment gateway providers. DentaCarts: Matching the Demand for Authenticated Dental Products74 Championing Nascent Sectors

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DentaCarts attended the Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) Congress held in Dubai as part of the V-Lab delegation to the event held in line with EXPO 2020. At the event, the startup won rst place in the Series A startup competition.While Dentacarts’ platform currently primarily serves the Egyptian market, they have had organic reach in 22 other countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Kenya, and Ghana. Their revenues reached ve million USD in 2022. To meet the growing demand across the region, DentaCarts plans on establishing a regional hub in Saudi Arabia to serve other markets across Asia and Africa and expanding their medical supply offerings beyond dental care, including lab supplies and derma cosmetics. DentaCarts’ social impact is broader than its online presence. They have also partnered with Egyptian NGO Misr Elkheir to run mobile dental clinics in Upper Egypt. Their rst mobile clinic served about 200 children in Assiut. More recently, they headed to Qena, treating an additional 200 children to dental care. “Happy 10th birthday, AUC Venture Lab! I owe you an introduction to this startup world, given my previous role in heading partnerships for Egypt’s leading privately-owned bank. With persistent efforts, AUC V-Lab has continuously opened doors for startups, leveraging an extensive network of corporate and strategic partners and managing to get outstanding results. Personally, I was inspired through this exposure to co-found ‘Balad’ - a ntech endeavor aimed at breaking nancial barriers for migrants and their families. AUC V-Lab, keep rocking, and may the next chapter of your journey be even more extraordinary than the last! Your legacy of fostering innovation and nurturing startups will continue to inspire and shape the entrepreneurial landscape for years to come.”Sally AsaadCo-founder, COO and CBO of Balad 75Championing Nascent Sectors

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The medical devices market’s value exceeds $ 31 billion. In MENA, 90% of medical devices and supplies remain imported. This is what inspired Wesam Sarhan and Mousa Salem to start InCurA.After completing her PhD at The American University in Cairo (AUC), InCurA’s CEO and previous AUC Adjunct Assistant Professor Wesam Sarhan joined forces with Mousa Salem, who was a visiting researcher at Harvard before joining InCurA as co-founder and CTO, to develop locally-produced, high quality, affordable medical supplies.With their accumulated 17 years of experience in the science realm and with the help of a growing team focusing on R&D, process engineering, and biological evaluation, InCurA’s founders developed a pipeline of high-performance, cost-ecient, IP-protected medical devices that can be locally produced based on unique know-how and technology. Their lead products focused on bleeding control.Despite their rich technical experience, Sarhan realized they needed to get more immersed in the business side and chose V-Lab as their “bridge to the business world.” InCurA’s rst product was ColiSorB, high-quality, highly-absorbing medical sponges used to stop bleeding. The competitive product does not require pre-wetting and absorbs blood up to 60 times its size vs the market’s typical 40 times, which makes it not only more ecient but also more cost-effective.InCurA: From Local Labs to International MarketsInCurA’s second product CurASeal is a hemostatic powder that lowers blood loss by 74%, saving lives and resources. With two laboratories, one at AUC in Egypt and one in Saudi Arabia, InCurA’s team has managed to produce their innovative biomaterial and develop manufacturing processes. Upon developing its products, the team les for international patents, which, in tandem with the startup’s B2B model, allow it to work with other businesses through licensing agreements and partnerships for manufacturing and distribution. After graduating from V-Lab and landing investment from KAUST Innovation Venture, Terra VC, and angel investors, InCurA is launching in Saudi Arabia and in Egypt. The startup already has more products in the pipeline.“V-Lab’s Startup Accelerator added much to our understanding of valuation, investment, and pricing strategies,” reected Sarhan on her team’s experience. She added that the sense of community among the team members and other entrepreneurs enriched the experience. V-Lab’s healthtech portfolio continues to grow with inspiring entrepreneurs committed to saving lives through local innovation with global potential.76Championing Nascent Sectors

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How Gamers Are Shaping Esports in the MENA RegionSince its inception, V-Lab has been committed to supporting a diverse portfolio of startups that present innovative solutions across various sectors and industries. From creative and digital industries to ntech, e-commerce, and healthcare, V-Lab has expanded its portfolio over the last 10 years to remain as sector-agnostic as possible, identifying early market trends, supporting innovation, and creating impact.In 2015, Samer Wagdy, Mustafa Zaza, and Bishoy Mesdary, co-founders of GBarena, came together as gamers to create an esports space in a sector where there was no organizing entity for gaming events near them. They were passionate about gaming and saw an opportunity to bring competitive video game events to the MENA region. With no existing infrastructure for competitions in the region, they knew they had to create their own.“When we started, it was out of passion,” said Zaza. “The market in the Middle East lacked competitiveness, with no video game competitions held back then. To participate in competitions, you needed to have an entity that managed these competitions.”The term ‘esports’ was not yet introduced in the Middle East at the time, and only started gaining popularity in 2018. GBarena was one of the rst companies to take a chance on the industry before it was popular.As gamers, Zaza and Mesdary were accustomed to the virtual world. They understood that gaming could transform introverts into extroverts in the right environment. They began by gathering a community of gamers to compete against each other and rate players, thinking of building a business on top of it. But, coming from a technical background, they were challenged when it came to business know-how.“We were struggling at rst to know where to begin,” said Mesdary. “Do we start with the technical side of the business? But then, what is the value of our product? What is our business? At V-Lab, they helped us understand our value by developing a business model and using tools like the business model canvas. They also helped us develop business values that any business needs to establish before jumping into the market or even developing the product. We had a lot of ideas, and we worked hard on GBarena: Constructing a Community for Competitive Gamersthem, but then we realized that they may not have true value for our customers. The guidance from V-Lab got us thinking about the real value we were offering as a business.”After graduating from AUC V-Lab’s Startup Accelerator’s Cycle 6, the team was ready for launch. They won the French Tech Ticket competition and a grant from France, and part of the team moved to Marseille for a year to work on further business development. By the end of 2016, they started hiring their early employees. In 2018, they landed a grant of 180,000 EGP from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in Egypt and oce space in Smart Village.GBarena continued to develop its platform, and in 2019, it secured a $100,000 seed investment from HIMangel. After a year, they introduced new games and secured further funding from AUC Angels and two angel investors. They began introducing business-to-consumer (B2C) services in 2022.The community that GBarena’s team dreamt of building continues to grow, with more than 50 partners in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, and many other countries across the region. They hold events in Germany with communities participating from all over the world. More than 30,000 of the platform’s users come from Europe alone. Moving forward, GBarena plans to incorporate AI technologies into its platform to keep up with the changes in the gaming realm. The team’s passion for gaming has led them to create an esports platform that has brought together gamers from all over the world. Their journey is a testament to the power of perseverance. In the same year GBarena came to life, another gaming startup was born.78Championing Nascent Sectors

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Championing Nascent Sectors3Ahmed Alaa, the co-founder of Cryptyd, has been passionate about video games since childhood. Growing up, his passion turned into a dream of creating his own games. Accordingly, he founded Sypros Entertainment and then Cryptyd, a games development startup based in Alexandria, Egypt.Together with his co-founder Amera Ahmed and their team, they describe themselves as tech geeks, game developers, game artists, and game designers who believe in the power of mobile games in telling meaningful stories. After starting Cryptyd in 2015, Alaa and his team joined AUC Venture Lab’s Startup Accelerator in 2016. They began designing their business model so that their startup was cost-effective and delivered the highest possible development quality while eciently engaging their customers. After graduating from the Startup Accelerator, Cryptyd went on to join Google’s Indie Games Accelerator in Singapore, establishing the startup among the most promising game development companies in MENA with an eye on both regional and global markets.Cryptyd: Taking Games SeriouslyIn 2019, Cryptyd secured funding from The Cairo Angels (now known as Acasia) and Alexandria Angels in a pre-Series A round that helped the team develop more games. Today, Cryptyd is an independent mobile games development studio dedicated to producing innovative games with native artwork and a focus on the gamers’ experience. The startup offers developers and publishers a range of services from idea iteration and adaptation to game design and development. With ve games under its belt, the startup went on to raise further funding in 2022 as it announced the development of new games targeting GCC markets as well as the allocation of some of the funds to the pre-production phases of the new IP secured by the company for its next game targeting global markets.79Championing Nascent Sectors

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Harnessing the Power of Artiﬁcial IntelligenceArticial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming markets worldwide, and Egypt is no exception. Entrepreneurs are at the forefront of introducing AI and leveraging the technology’s potential to revolutionize various sectors.V-Lab entrepreneurs recognize the immense opportunities that AI presents and are harnessing its power to drive change. They are developing AI-powered solutions that address real-world challenges and enhance operational eciency. From healthcare and nance to retail and resource management, startups leverage AI algorithms, machine learning, and data analytics to create impactful solutions. When Mohamed Gaber, founder and CEO of Velents, and his team noticed an opportunity in the MENA recruitment space, they jumped in to learn more. The recruitment process was time and resource-consuming. Recruiters spend long hours to ll a single position. On the other hand, potential candidates spend a lot of time commuting to interviews, drafting resumes, and submitting documents that do not necessarily best represent their characters or help recruiters assess their skills. Velents’ team knew that with AI, they could save both sides of any recruitment process time, energy, and a lot of disappointment. With 10 years of experience building tech products across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and a team focusing on business and software development, data, and growth, Gaber launched Velents in 2021. The launched data-driven hiring platform automates and speeds up the recruitment process by leveraging AI. Since its launch, Velents has rolled out various products across assessment and evaluation, automation, collaboration, and reporting. For hiring managers, the platform aids with bias-free recruitment by employing AI to assess personality traits, evaluate technical skills automatically, promote vacancies across several channels, analyze applications and interviews automatically, and even generate reports about recruitment efforts. Velents: Automating Hiring and Reducing BiasHowever, Velents is about more than just easing recruitment for hiring managers. It also helps job seekers assess and improve their skills. The platform facilitates applying to vacancies and communicating with HR representatives, offers automated interview preparation functions, and generates feedback to help candidates improve their skills. The startup’s team works hard to build a solution that addresses the region’s top needs. They equipped the platform with features to instantly assess and evaluate applications in English and Arabic with various dialects, cultural nuances, and even non-verbal cues. The platform’s language processing and analytical abilities unlock a vast market potential beyond Egypt. Velents’ journey testies to the willingness of individuals and organizations to adopt AI in the region. For example, the founder reported that only three weeks after the platform had launched its interview preparation function, 1,000 users used the product. In 2023, the startup announced an annual recurring revenue of $35,000 from clients in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.While Velents’ work with AI saves corporate resources, Techsa is another V-Lab startup that employs AI to conserve our natural resources.80 Championing Nascent Sectors

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Co-founders Marina Danial and Ramy Salah had worked together for years before they ventured to build Techsa. After earning her bachelor’s in computer science with minors in electronics and business administration from AUC, Danial went on to build a career of more than 17 years in software solutions development as a technical product manager. Meanwhile, following his studies, Salah garnered broad experience developing and supporting software across IoT, 5G, Wi-Fi, multimedia, and ethernet verication. “We started in 2021. After 17 years of professional experience in software development across corporates, my co-founder Ramy and I decided to start our own tech startup, as we managed for several years, through our partnership together at Siemens PLM, to deliver successful grand projects to huge businesses such as Cisco, Google, Facebook and other huge players in the market,” reected Danial.Techsa: Technology for a Greener FutureOut of their passion for building a business that can make real change, the two co-founders created Techsa, a startup that builds tech solutions that empower businesses to make better decisions, operate more eciently, and contribute to a greener future.The V-Lab graduate started with a software solution for measuring, detecting, and predicting overows from sewage and rain underground systems by connecting with existing sensors. The rapid-to-deploy, end-to-end platform offered businesses real-time operational insights based on mathematical and tailored AI and machine learning algorithms. In addition, the solution provided data analysis, alerts, predictions, and automated actions to empower stakeholders to make proactive decisions. In January 2022, Techsa joined AUC Venture Lab’s Startup Accelerator. While at V-Lab’s Cycle 18, Techsa’s team explored different models they could operate. 82Championing Nascent Sectors

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“Our time at AUC Venture Lab was a game changer! The mentorship and resources provided propelled Techsa to new heights. We focused our vision, rened strategies, and expanded networks. V-Lab’s nurturing environment fueled our growth and empowered us to drive real impact,” said Danial.As the startup started operating, they realized that nding a good tech team and nancing it were among the biggest challenges early-stage startups could face. Accordingly, they began offering services and consultations to support their product development. Today, Techsa offers state-of-the-art software that can connect IoT with organizational processes, track, extract, analyze, and communicate complex data, and even produce digital twins that generate insights and predict different future scenarios to fuel data-driven decisions. Techsa aims to help businesses nd the sweet spot for maximizing eciency while reducing harmful environmental impact.V-Lab startups like Velents and Techsa are driving the introduction and adoption of AI in Egypt through innovative solutions that address local and global challenges, improve eciency, and create a positive impact across sectors.“As a former corporate partner and now an entrepreneurship academic, my journey with V-Lab has been transformative. From initiating the rst of its kind energy and sustainability track to mentoring, judging, and contributing as a speaker in its diverse events, every moment spent with V-Lab has been both enriching and memorable.V-Lab’s impact on startups has been profound, which is driven by a highly talented team and the visionary leadership of Dr. Ayman Ismail and Dean Sheirf Kamel. Collaborating closely with V-Lab in academia further enhanced my belief in the pivotal role such an entity plays in creating the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders. The electrifying energy during demo days, and the birth of numerous startups in the energy and sustainability domain stand out as milestones in my journey with V-Lab. These experiences are constant reminders of why I am passionate about being part of this transformative community. V-Lab, with its commitment to excellence, not only cultivates startups, but also cultivates enduring relationships and enduring change.”Moataz DarwishAssociate Professor of Practice at AUC School of Business83Championing Nascent Sectors

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882Entrepreneurship can be a daunting journey without guidance. While news headlines may highlight the hard work of self-made entrepreneurs, what often goes unnoticed is the critical role that their mentors play in their support. For 10 years, V-Lab has made it a priority to build a network of inspiring mentors who are willing to share their time and expertise with entrepreneurs and nd their own joy in the interaction.“Collaborating with the V-Lab team was always a pleasure. With each cycle, it felt like being with a growing family of an inspiring team giving their everything, every day, to support inspiring entrepreneurs make their dream startups come true,” shared Innovation Consultant and long-time V-Lab Mentor Hani W. Naguib.Naguib is among the rst V-Lab mentors who have actively supported our startups since inception. Today, our network has grown to include more than 200 valuable mentors from different backgrounds. Read on to explore our mentorship models, the experience our entrepreneurs have had with their mentors, and the impact of V-Lab’s mentors network.Building a Community of Active Mentors286 Building a Community of Active Mentors

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Who Are the Mentors?V-Lab mentors come from diverse backgrounds. They have acquired extensive experience across various industries and are always eager to assist others with their knowledge and networks. Because no two experiences are the same, we often ask our entrepreneurs and mentors to reect on the best mentorship experiences they had. Here are some of the highlights they shared:Access to Knowledge and Connections“We have had opportunities to learn from and engage at length with the Egyptian ecosystem’s top leaders. While you may spend a signicant amount of time and effort pursuing dicult-to-reach leaders in this space, V-Lab’s program brings them to you,” said Marwan Salem, co-founder of Remooz.V-Lab mentors enjoy guiding and supporting founders. It brings them pride to see their mentees grow and succeed with the knowledge they have shared.“The mere thought of helping people realize dreams and visions and build something from nothing is very fullling and satisfying,” reected Fintech Consultant, V-Lab Mentor, and Ex-Digital Marketing Head at CIB Egypt Ashraf Nashed. “It is great to have dreams - everyone has - but to manifest that dream into a material, working version with a probability of life and growth is another story. So, watching V-Lab create more and more practical and realistic businesses has been a great part of the journey with them over the past ve years.”87Building a Community of Active Mentors

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A Safe Haven Great mentors help founders survive the most dicult times. The interaction with V-Lab mentors ensures that founders always feel grounded and supported even while facing the toughest challenges. Mentors guide our entrepreneurs when they are doubting themselves or the viability of their startup and help them nd new pathways to take.“I got introduced to top-tier advisors that I could talk to in a safe environment, which allowed me to share the challenges I face at any point. Whenever I need advice, I can go with an open mind and an open heart and get that advice,” said Amr AboDraiaa, co-founder of Rology.“Even after graduation, we are still involved with the V-Lab network. We get the chance to hear from banks, corporates, government ocials, and other stakeholders and understand where they are headed and how they think,” said Mohamed Abdelmottaleb, founder of XPay.V-Lab aims to build a long-term relationship between entrepreneurs and their mentors that lasts beyond the program. Not only do entrepreneurs benet from such a sustained relationship, but mentors often comment on how they enjoy witnessing thoughts turn into revenues, the shifts in market dynamics, and star entrepreneurs taking their companies to new heights.“Witnessing the mix of ambition, struggle, hard work, and payoff has impacted me even before the entrepreneurs. V-Lab showed great inuence other than nancial backing, extending support to valuable sources of mentorship, consultation, and connections,” said Manal Negmeldin, head of direct channels at Elaraby Group, CEO and founder of E-Business School and V-Lab mentor.A Relationship That Lasts Mentorship That InspiresMentorship can inspire mentors as much as mentees. Over the years, V-Lab mentors have developed their industries, come up with innovative startup concepts, and fostered the entrepreneurial mindset inside their organizations. “Being part of V-Lab’s community initially tied to my job’s objectives, but it became an eye-opening journey. The engagement with each cohort expanded my knowledge of ntech and nancial inclusion. Moreover, my engagement with many startups at V-Lab inspired a career shift into the ntech ecosystem,” said Hany Soliman, regional head and operating partner for GCC and Africa at PayTabs and V-Lab mentor.“One of many memorable moments that I consider very special was a ntech hackathon, staying overnight to support participants who were determined on success; the sight of sleeping bags and shifts between team members to nish their fresh ideas’ coding was very enriching and inspiring nevertheless the friendships and collaborations that came out of this experience were priceless. I always consider myself part of the V-Lab team!” Soliman added.88Building a Community of Active Mentors

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From one-on-one speed mentorship to insightful group discussions, V-Lab has developed its mentorship offerings over the years to guarantee that entrepreneurs get access to top-notch expertise and cutting-edge market insights. Dierent Models That WorkToday, V-Lab offers various mentorship opportunities, including:• Mentor-matchmaking with market experts for speed mentorship that focuses on specic startup challenges.• Access to long-term resident mentors across industries like ntech, AI, and more.• Group mentorship that allows entrepreneurs to learn from peer experiences.“Regardless of which mentorship session I had with AUC V-Lab, group or individual, online or oine, I had the same high level of engagement, enthusiasm, passion, and smart conversations. To me, this is the mirror that reects V-Lab’s quality impact on the Egyptian startups’ ecosystem, creating a breed of founders that will go far, shape the future, and create high nancial and social returns.” Tarek RoushdyCEO and Founder of UI Investments89Building a Community of Active Mentors

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Mobilizing Investors to Fill a Funding GapAfter ve years of supporting early-stage entrepreneurs on their startup-building journeys, one fact was undeniable: landing early-stage investment was harder than it needed to be.In 2018, the Egyptian startup ecosystem had widely grown. Startups were looking for different funding sources to support their businesses’ growth. While venture capital (VC) funds were the leading source of funding for startups then, accounting for approximately 55% of all announced investments, entrepreneurs sought other sources of nancing, including friends, family, angel investors, grant providers, corporate partners, and accelerators and incubators that were willing to fund startups at earlier stages.Globally, angel investments have been on the rise in recent years. The space in Egypt was still relatively nascent compared to more mature markets like the United States and Europe. The opportunity for angel investment was ripe. Entrepreneurs needed investors who understood the high-risk nature of early-stage startup funding and were willing to get involved even before they were ready for VC funding. Meanwhile, more and more accomplished individuals were fascinated by the entrepreneurship ecosystem and wanted to contribute to the youthful community. This is when AUC Angels came to life. The network started in 2018 with a piloting phase followed by its ocial launch in 2019. The idea was to ll a clear funding gap for early-stage startups and build a community of investors genuinely interested in supporting entrepreneurs.A Snapshot of the Startup Funding Market in 2018A Community of Early BelieversThe network was built of AUC alumni and members of the extended AUC community. Potential members were invited to join and introduced to the angel investment process. What started as a small group of potential investors rapidly grew into a community of more than 60 active investors. Members of the network have different proles and a variety of motivations and preferences; some are high net-worth individuals who are looking to give back to society through supporting innovative businesses, and some believe in the potential startups have to transform specic industries where they may be involved, while others are professional investors who seek early access to potential high growth startups.Upon entering the network, members get invited to an onboarding meeting where the network’s team introduces them to the typical deal ow, evaluates their investment interests and preferences, and addresses any concerns. AUC Angels is committed to empowering investors and entrepreneurs through high-quality matchmaking. The network’s team assesses startups’ investment readiness and vets products and business models to provide investors with a top-notch pipeline of investable startups. The network members get invited to regular pitch nights on a quarterly basis, where they witness pitches from startup founders and discuss potential deals. 102Mobilizing Early Believer Investments

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The network’s rst investment was in 2019 in V-Lab graduate GBarena. Since launch, the network has invested more than $ 1.6 million in a growing portfolio that includes startups in e-commerce, gaming, healthtech, ntech, logistics, sustainability, and F&B.Discover our entire portfolio in section 9.Over the years, AUC Angels has fostered strong relationships with various organizations and individuals to strengthen its support for entrepreneurs and investors. AUC Angels’ network of more than 20 partners varies between funds, VCs, investment networks, and entrepreneurship support organizations.Through its syndication agreements with major local angel networks, AUC Angels has co-invested in several deals helping startups secure larger funding rounds.Despite COVID-19 slowing down investment in the region, AUC Angels was ranked among the region’s most active investors in 2020.Since then, the network has made multiple investments and secured follow-up deals for some of its startups. The network continues to grow its membership base while providing high-potential startups the funding they need, one deal at a time.Deals and Investment Portfolio “The quality of deal ow coming from AUC Venture Lab programs always amazes me. Above all, this is due to the highly skilled and passionate team at V-Lab. Their willingness to run the extra mile for founders as well as partners like VC4A is tremendous. Onto the next 10 years. Mabrook!” Thomas van HalenInvestor Relations lead at VC4AMembers also receive insights about the startup ecosystem, connect with each other, and often choose to get involved with entrepreneurs to provide business development advice. The network’s team facilitates the investment deal ow from identifying interesting opportunities to vetting businesses and all the way to closing deals and following up with entrepreneurs.The network’s team also helps entrepreneurs prepare their investment cases and understand the funding scene and fundraising process while providing V-Lab entrepreneurs with investment clinic hours. 103Mobilizing Early Believer Investments

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Fueling Impactful Collaborations: AUC’s Faculty, Students, and Entrepreneurs Join ForcesA group of AUC students and their professor work together with a V-Lab entrepreneur on rebranding her e-commerce platform that supports women-led businesses.She has been actively mentoring V-Lab entrepreneurs on brand identity for 10 cycles, and when she runs into interesting startups, she invites the founders to her class. After building I Make This’ e-commerce platform, Atef needed support in rebranding the company. She thought of reaching out to Samir to see how she could help. “Rania was very open to ideas and interested in working with students,” shared Samir. “I have worked with several startups to support them with their logos and brand identity, one of which was Zeroprime Technologies (a V-Lab Cycle 8 graduate), which ended up using a logo developed by one of my students for its product CanBank. And the collaboration with I Make This also yielded results.” Atef visited Samir’s class and shared the story of I Make This with 20 students. The students were split into groups and tasked with rethinking the company’s brand identity and uplifting it. Over the course of the semester, three student groups were selected as nalists. Atef showcased the nalists’ brand identity proposals to the I Make This community members and they voted to choose the winner. Beyond Samir’s course, two of her students continued to work with Atef to nalize the branding project. Being a part of the V-Lab community allows entrepreneurs to tap into a pool of AUC professors and experts, as well as eager youth who are at the beginning of their careers and are ready to engage with the startup community to learn and share innovative ideas. For Rania Atef, having the support of the AUC community was crucial in supporting the brand identity of her business. To support women who run small businesses, Atef started a social media group called “I Make This” back in 2019. All she had in mind at rst was to create a platform for women to discuss their businesses and market their products. She had noticed that most social media groups did not encourage business ads, rejected them, or monitored them closely, and she thought of creating a group to showcase innovative businesses led by women. Shortly after she started the group, about 2,000 people joined, and she began inviting businesses to share their stories, and that is when the magic happened. She joined V-Lab’s Startup Accelerator’s Cycle 18 while building her e-commerce platform for women-led businesses to display and sell their products. “I built several relationships through the V-Lab network, but one that lasted beyond the program was my relationship with Dr. Nagla Samir,” Atef shared.Samir is the Director of the Graphic Design Program and Associate Professor of Practice at AUC. She teaches a course focused on branding, logo creation, and visual identity design. She likes to introduce her students to actual client briefs to give them a real taste of the market. 108Developing Vibrant Ecosystems

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I Make This has helped more than 8,000 women with small creative businesses expand their brands’ exposure and boost their sales. 340 women have launched their businesses on the e-commerce platform, which features about 15,000 products. The startup has run more than a dozen on-the-ground bazaars and processed more than 8,000 orders on its website. “The charm of I Make This is that we created the market before the product. We created interest before offering an e-commerce platform. Our platform was created with zero spending on marketing,” said Atef. “We have impacted a lot of women’s lives. Some women post on the group, and then their products get sold out, which is huge for a small business. One of our makers once posted her products on the group when she was about to shut down her business, and the group saved her from doing so.”109 Developing Vibrant Ecosystems

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Atef plans on building the makers’ capacity and helping them grow their businesses, as well as converting her group members - amounting to about 190,000 - to the e-commerce platform to boost small businesses’ sales even further.Samir highlighted how excited she was that ideas and dreams such as I Make This can be turned into a realized revenue-generating business through V-Lab programs. Over the years, V-Lab has been committed to spreading the pillars of innovation and the entrepreneurial mindset across the AUC community and exposing students to the startup world.Moataz Darwish, long-time mentor and supporter of V-Lab, initially collaborated with the accelerator when he was working at Shell back in 2018. Under his leadership, the company sponsored one of V-Lab’s program’s tracks in energy and sustainability. Back then, he engaged with entrepreneurs across different activities, attending demo days, mentoring, and participating in the startup selection panels. After leaving Shell in 2021, he joined AUC School of Business as an Associate Professor of Practice. He still supports V-Lab in this capacity, in addition to closely working with the team on collaborations for his classes. “V-Lab creates immense value for the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Egypt, offering an exceptional platform where academia converges with startup innovation,” said Darwish. Darwish teaches the Entrepreneurial Lab course, which prepares students to understand and deeply engage with entrepreneurship concepts. He invites V-Lab team members and entrepreneurs to share their perspectives and provide insights on topics like preparing an attractive pitch and how to validate business ideas and models. By the end of his course, he also invites V-Lab team members to serve as judges for an in-class competition where his students pitch their ideas and receive feedback. This offers students a taste of the real-life experience of building business ideas and pitching them to potential investors. “Through my multidimensional involvement over the years - from industry partnership to academia and active participation in V-Lab’s initiatives - the profound impact and personal growth fostered in this vibrant platform have solidied my dedication to playing an active role in nurturing entrepreneurship in Egypt and beyond. As I continue this journey, I remain wholeheartedly committed to the V-Lab and the AUC School of Business’s mission and I believe in their inuence to spark innovation, shape futures, and transform people,” Darwish concluded. 2110 Developing Vibrant Ecosystems

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Building Entrepreneurial Support Organizations in Egypt and BeyondAfter nearly 10 years of launching its agship program, AUC Venture Lab initiated a program to replicate its success across Egyptian governorates and in neighboring countries.AUC Venture Lab, in collaboration with the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, launched IncuDev, a capacity-building program for teams of business incubators, accelerators, and entrepreneurship support organizations in Egypt. The program, launched in 2021, was part of V-Lab’s ongoing collaboration with DROSOS FOUNDATION and part of the Ministry’s Rowad 2030 project, which aims to stimulate and enrich the innovation process and empower entrepreneurs to create job opportunities and increase youth participation.IncuDev is a training program offering participants tools and techniques for program development and design, operations and management, as well as fundraising and capacity building for the founding team. The program also facilitates collaboration opportunities to streamline efforts, create a broader impact, and allow participants to reach shared goals.Only in its rst year, IncuDev made a signicant impact on the country’s ecosystem, training 170 participants from 83 organizations across 17 governorates. The program has helped teams design and establish new incubators and accelerators and develop existing ones, providing them with the skills and knowledge they need to build successful programs for entrepreneurship support.Egypt’s Minister of Planning and Economic Development Dr. Hala El-Said said in a statement issued by the Ministry in 2021 that the cooperation between the Ministry and AUC Venture Lab aimed at maximizing the benet of managers of business incubators and accelerators and entrepreneurship support institutions from the experience of AUC Venture Lab as the rst university-based accelerator in Egypt which had accelerated more than 200 startups and created more than 8,000 job opportunities.Following its local success, the program went regional, reaching eight countries in Africa and the Middle East: United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Rwanda, Lebanon, Palestine, South Africa, Tunisia, and Nigeria. Ursula El Hage, director of the Entrepreneurship Center (EC2) at Saint Joseph University of Beirut, remembered her experience at IncuDev fondly. “I attended AUC Venture Lab’s IncuDev, and I believe they are an enabler for the entrepreneurial system in the Middle East,” said El Hage. “They know how to manage stakeholders, design services, and secure funding, and they are willing to share all this knowledge with others. They are a valuable resource for entrepreneurs and anyone looking to support them.”111 Developing Vibrant Ecosystems

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Creating Sustainable Employment for Youths Across Egyptian CitiesAUC Venture Lab joined hands with Hivos and Nahdet El Mahrousa to build networks of coworking spaces across the country for youths to connect and learn from each other. Stemming from a belief in the power of collaboration and the lack of equitable supporting mechanisms for rising entrepreneurs beyond the capital, Hivos, Nahdet El Mahrousa, and AUC Venture Lab launched ‘Coworking for Sustainable Employment (CWSE)’ in 2018. The program aimed to create more job opportunities for youth between the ages of 15 and 24 years, particularly young women, within medium-sized towns outside Cairo through empowering coworking and innovation spaces to later act as central hubs supporting young entrepreneurs and small businesses. The program ran for a year and a half, during which more than 1,000 jobs were created, and 170 startups were generated from the coworking spaces. The program focused on building in-house capacities and ensuring sustainability at the selected coworking spaces through various activities and interventions, including technical support, more than 200 hours of training, and one-on-one mentorship to the coworking spaces’ teams. The program allowed the supported participants to develop sustainable business models, create impactful coworking environments, master nancial viability, and provide enhanced job opportunities for the youths in their communities. The program focused on sectors that offered potential for growth, including the creative industries, ICT, and F&B.Due to the varying nature of each participant’s cities, each coworking space was encouraged and assisted in developing its model, programs, and KPIs they would commit to implementing throughout the program, which responded specically to their cities’ main trends and social contexts. Funding was also allocated to the coworking spaces according to their progress and nancial reports in order to support their targeted growth.“The program denitely exceeded our expectations. The training sessions in Gouna were particularly benecial. All the mentorship helped us to become more nancially sustainable and to grow our startup; we are now operating in three governorates and looking to expand in seven more in the near future,” asserted Mahmoud Ali from Al Makkan in Menoua at the program’s conclusion.“As we celebrate AUC Venture Lab’s remarkable 10-year journey, I am lled with gratitude for their pivotal role in hosting the rst AfriLabs General Assembly in Cairo in 2017. This event brought together and united over 300 African entrepreneurs, innovation hubs, and startups, leaving an indelible mark on AfriLabs’ history. AUC V-Lab’s unwavering support and collaboration have transformed lives and catalyzed innovation across the continent. Here’s to a decade of impact and a future brimming with possibilities!”Moataz HelmyChairperson of AfriLabs112Developing Vibrant Ecosystems

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V-Lab: Driving Global Expertise to Egyptian FoundersV-Lab recognizes the importance of global knowledge exchange and has established strategic partnerships with renowned international universities. These collaborations facilitate cross-border learning, mentorship, and networking opportunities for entrepreneurs. V-Lab equips entrepreneurs with a global mindset by leveraging partner institutions’ expertise and diverse perspectives. Joint initiatives, such as ecosystem tours, collaboration projects, and case study generation, provide access to international markets while offering insights into the diverse Egyptian market. Over the years, V-Lab has hosted and collaborated with delegations from Columbia Business School, IPAG Business School, University of California Berkeley, and Manchester Metropolitan University and held memberships in collaboratives such as the Babson Collaborative (founded and sponsored by Babson College).Collaborations with International UniversitiesAs a driving force in the entrepreneurial landscape, AUC Venture Lab has prioritized providing Egyptian entrepreneurs with the international expertise and exposure they deserve to compete locally and globally. Through dynamic collaborations with leading international universities, local and international organizations, industry leaders, and government institutions, V-Lab fosters a thriving ecosystem of innovation that empowers entrepreneurs on a global scale.“I have seen and experienced rst-hand how AUC Venture Lab has been an empowering catalyst for innovation, propelling entrepreneurs towards their dreams. Through their unwavering support and collaboration, they have sculpted an ecosystem that fosters growth, transforms ideas into impactful businesses, and reshapes the entrepreneurial landscape in Egypt and beyond. Students from Columbia Business School who have worked with V-Lab have been impressed with their dedication to nurturing talent, providing mentorship, and connecting startups with vital resources, unleashing a wave of transformative change, enriching not only the lives of entrepreneurs but also the socioeconomic fabric of the region. I see V-Lab’s indomitable spirit of collaboration igniting a beacon of hope and opportunity for aspiring visionaries.”Marco ViolaAdjunct Professor at Columbia Business School116Creating Local and Global Connections

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“Startups Without Borders would not be the international community it is today without the support of AUC Venture Lab. From the early days of our company, when it was simply an idea, the V-Lab team led by Ayman Ismail supported us not only by hosting our rst three Startups Without Borders Summits, but also by offering candid and relentless support to our team. Will forever be grateful for harnessing our vision, supporting us against the challenges of a global pandemic, and, most importantly, setting an example for us all.”Valentina PrimoFounder and CEO of Startups Without Borders3Creating Local and Global ConnectionsV-Lab goes beyond traditional support structures by actively collaborating over industry-focused challenges and events, bringing together entrepreneurs with different stakeholders. By engaging with key industry players, V-Lab provides a platform for entrepreneurs to address real-world challenges and develop innovative solutions. V-Lab has collaborated with events like Climathon and Techne’s Disruptors Lab, HealthTech, and Startup Without Borders. The accelerator also often organizes roundtables around the most pressing topics for entrepreneurs, like startup and corporate collaboration featuring Arab African International Bank executives, challenges for startup growth featuring entrepreneurs and regulators, logistics and retail featuring Henkel executives, and insurtech opportunities featuring Financial Regulatory Authority representatives, Insurance Federation of Egypt executives, and CORBEH. These initiatives not only foster entrepreneurial growth but also contribute to addressing pressing societal and environmental issues. In addition to the opportunities such events bring to the entrepreneurs, the V-Lab team often engages with potential entrepreneurs, joins competitions’ judging panels, leads workshops, and contributes to panel discussions and roundtables.Supporting Industry-Focused Challenges and Events117Creating Local and Global Connections

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“Two years consecutively, AUC Venture Lab demonstrates best in class, securing the Global Startups Awards Africa title for Best Accelerator and Incubator. Their commitment to fostering innovation through cohort-based, mentorship-driven programs highlight the transformative impact that dedication, resources, and expertise can have on entrepreneurs across Africa and beyond.” Jo GrithsCo-founder of Global Startup Awards Africa and the Global Innovation Initiative GroupV-Lab constantly strives for excellence and benchmarks its performance against regional and global standards. The accelerator assesses its impact, effectiveness, and best practices and regularly participates in benchmarking exercises. This process enables continual improvement and ensures alignment with global trends in entrepreneurship support. V-Lab’s commitment to excellence has earned it recognition on both regional and international stages, enhancing its credibility and attracting high-potential entrepreneurs and investors to the Egyptian entrepreneurial ecosystem. To date, V-Lab has been recognized by global benchmarking institutions, academic associations, and international entrepreneurship summits, including UBI Global, Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), Africa Startup Ecosystem Builder Summit, and Global Startup Awards (GSA). These global recognitions are a testament to V-Lab’s impact and the mark its entrepreneurs leave on the community and the economy.Global Benchmarking and RecognitionV-Lab entrepreneurs often participate in international competitions, showcasing their innovative solutions on the global stage. These competitions provide valuable opportunities for startups to gain recognition, attract investment, and forge partnerships with international stakeholders. V-Lab takes pride in the achievements of its startups in various international competitions like Startup World Cup, Annual Investment Meeting Congress Startup Pitch Competition (AIM Startup Competition), African Startup Awards, Expand North Star Competition, Seamless and MIT Enterprise Forum Startup Competition, where they have demonstrated their entrepreneurial prowess and represented Egypt’s vibrant startup ecosystem. Moreover, V-Lab’s entrepreneurs actively contribute to conferences like Annual Investment Meeting (AIM), Africa Fintech Summit, Gitex, and Web Summit by sharing their insights, expertise, and success stories. Their participation as speakers, panelists, exhibitors, and workshop facilitators enriches the event experience, inspiring others and fostering knowledge exchange among global entrepreneurship communities.Presence on the Global Stage118 Creating Local and Global Connections

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V-Lab is committed to bringing global perspectives and expertise to the Egyptian ecosystem by hosting prominent international speakers. The accelerator invites renowned entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and subject matter experts from around the world to share their knowledge, experiences, and diverse insights with the Egyptian startup community. These speakers offer valuable insights into emerging trends, best practices, and global market dynamics, inspiring and motivating founders in their entrepreneurial journeys. By hosting such esteemed individuals, V-Lab facilitates meaningful connections, fosters cross-cultural learning, and provides access to a wealth of international expertise. Speakers like Former ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehade, Internet/Media CEO, Venture Investor and Author Christopher M. Schroeder, Co-founder and CEO of Strategyzer Alexander Osterwalder, Professor of Management Information Systems and Author Yves Pigneur, Founder of Tameer Bank, Serial Entrepreneur and Investor Nadeem Hussain, Former Investment Director at Intel Corporation Baris Aksoy and NVIDIA’s Head of AI Developer Engagement Strategy Amulya Vishwanath have stimulated innovation, and contributed to the overall development of the Egyptian startup ecosystem.Bringing International Conversations Home119Creating Local and Global Connections

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“As AUC Venture Lab turns 10 this year, I would like to express my sincere pleasure and gratitude for being part of this journey among top-talented business leaders and entrepreneurs. Witnessing the mix of ambition, struggle, hard work, and payoff has impacted me even before them. V-Lab showed great inuence other than nancial backing, extending support to valuable sources of mentorship, consultation, and connections.”Manal NegmeldinHead of Direct Channels at Elaraby Group and CEO and Founder at E-Business School Recognizing the importance of partnerships for startup growth, V-Lab plays a crucial role in fostering partnerships between startups and institutions, including banks, corporates, and nancial organizations. Through targeted networking events, tailored mentor matchmaking, and roundtable discussions, V-Lab bridges the gap between startups, corporates, and institutions, enabling entrepreneurs to build connections, explore market gaps, access valuable expertise, and showcase their work. These opportunities open doors to mentorship, guidance, and potential strategic alliances. By facilitating these connections, V-Lab strengthens the entrepreneurial ecosystem and paves the way for sustainable growth and success for startups in Egypt.Sparking PartnershipsWith a focus on creating a multiplying impact, V-Lab not only offers its services to entrepreneurs, but also actively fosters innovation within partner institutions. By collaborating with universities and corporates, the accelerator promotes a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship within these institutions. Through programs like IncuDev, V-Lab provides capacity-building and training for teams of business incubators, accelerators, and support organizations. The accelerator also provides workshops and mentorship opportunities for members of different communities. Events like information sessions and internal hackathons conducted for Mountain View residents and CIB Egypt employees encourage individuals to explore their entrepreneurial potential and develop innovative solutions to real-world challenges. Such initiatives help create an innovation ecosystem within partner institutions, fostering creativity, problem-solving, and entrepreneurial mindset. By nurturing innovation with partners, V-Lab creates a long-term impact and encourages adaptability to a rapidly changing business landscape.V-Lab’s international and local collaborations exemplify its dedication to championing entrepreneurship on a global scale. Through partnerships with international universities and institutions, active support for events, hosting inuential speakers, and regular benchmarking, V-Lab cultivates a vibrant innovation ecosystem. By providing entrepreneurs with global exposure, resources, and networks, V-Lab empowers Egyptian entrepreneurs to succeed in the global marketplace. As the accelerator expands its global footprint, it reinforces its position as a catalyst for entrepreneurial growth.Igniting Innovation within Organizations120 Creating Local and Global Connections

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