Funding and acquisition announcements this week: 3-9 November
It’s that time again! The weekly wrap-up of the funding and acquisition announcements between 3 and 9 November is here. This period has been remarkably quieter than the same period in October, where there were multiple funding announcements, including cohorts of regional accelerators.
Keno
Founded: 2016 by Rayyan Abu Hassan
HQ: Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Latest Funding Round: Undisclosed Corporate Round
Funding Stage: Undisclosed
Investor(s): JustClean
Total Funding to Date: Undisclosed
Keno is a Dubai-based on-demand car service app that comes directly to you based on your GPS location. Similar to other regionally launched car services apps such as CAFU, which brings petrol to your car wherever you are, Keno aims to provide car services so that you do not have to go to a service station.
The investment comes from JustClean, a Kuwait-based home services startup that raised money from Faith Capital itself, and is looking to expand into other geographies and business lines.
Taaleem
Founded: 2015
HQ: Egypt
Latest Funding Round: $73M
Funding Stage: Acquisition
Investor(s): CI Capital, Stonepine Ace Partners
Total Funding to Date: Undisclosed
Egyptian higher education platform Taaleem controls and operates Nahda University in Beni Suef which hosts more than 5,200 students.
StonePine ACE Partners together with CI Capital and a group of co-investors acquired the platform from Thebes Education Management Holdings B.V., an RMBV managed co-investment vehicle funded by several Development Finance Institutions and global institutional investors.
Tripdizer
Founded: 2017 by Ziad El Adawy, Yara Yehia, Sameh Saleh, Hatem Ayoub and Mohamed Mostafa
HQ: Cairo, Egypt
Latest Funding Round: $300K
Funding Stage: Seed
Investor(s): 500 Startups, Innoventures
Total Funding to Date: $405K
Bringing a different spin to travel, Tripdizer is an Egypt-based travel tech startup that uses its proprietary algorithm to offer an end-to-end travel solution through personalised itineraries based on a variety of factors including a person’s interest and budget, based on its proprietary algorithm.
So, rather than planning everything on separate platforms, Tripdizer takes care of travel itenararies based on the information that customers provide them. With the funding round, the startup aims to accelerate its investment to develop a more dynamic product, expand its regional footprint and strengthen its brand name in the region.
With these two investments and one acquisition, the first week of November was an interesting one. We are seeing the education sector get more attention through a variety of channels, while home and professional services are overlapping as well.
**Please note that all data has been sourced from Crunchbase and media reports. Total funding denotes disclosed numbers.
