MENA fundings this week: 17 - 23 November
We saw six startups announce their fundings this week; two from the UAE, two from Jordan, one from Bahrain and another from Egypt. Check out their details below:
Addenda
Founded in 2017 by Karim Davis Dib and Walid Daniel Dib
HQ: Dubai, UAE
Latest funding amount: Undisclosed
Funding stage: Seed
Total funding to date: Undisclosed
Investors: 500 Startups, Beyond Capital
Addenda uses blockchain technology to improve the insurance industry. Between insurance companies, tailored tasks are reported in real-time on their user friendly interface, and then timestamped as evidence onto the blockchain.
Ekar
Founded in 2016 by Ravi Bhusari and Vilhelm Hedberg
HQ: Dubai, UAE
Latest funding amount: $17.5M
Funding stage: Series B
Total funding to date: $17.5M
Investors: Polymath Ventures, Audacia Capital, Yemni Group
Ekar is a convenient and flexible pay-as-you-drive car rental service, where consumers use an app to unlock and lock the car in between drives. The cars are scattered all around the city in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, with parking and refuelling being free in most situations. Moreover, people pay by the minute, day, week, or month depending on what they are looking for.
With the funding, Ekar announced its expansion into Saudi Arabia. Check out more details below:
Botme
Founded in 2017 by Saaid Elhakeem
HQ: Giza, Egypt
Latest funding amount: Undisclosed
Funding stage: Seed
Total funding to date: $100K
Investors: Undisclosed
Botme is a standalone platform for building chatbots for businesses and managing the whole business processes, which allows any business to build a chatbot easily.
Repzo
Founded in 2017 by Ayman Atmeh and Hassan Atmeh
HQ: Amman, Jordan
Latest funding amount: $750K
Funding stage: Seed
Total funding to date: $800K
Investors: AdamTech Ventures, Arzan Venture Capital, Jabbar Internet Group, Shorooq Partners
Repzo is a mobile employee management and CRM platform that turns devices into a standalone field force management tool. In other words, with the application you will be able to use geo-tracking for necessary field work by your employees.
Wasco Lab
Founded in 2018 by Gulnar Absalamova and Orkhan Aslanov
HQ: Manama, Bahrain
Latest funding amount: $53K
Funding stage: Pre-Seed
Total funding to date: $53K
Investors: Brinc
A CleanTech venture, Wasco Lab provides hardware and software solutions for municipalities and private waste collection companies. With its offerings, the startup received a $53K investment from Hong Kong-based accelerator Brinc, as well as a grant from international oil & gas giant BP.
Solfeh
Founded in 2015 by Ali Tabbalat
HQ: Amman, Jordan
Latest funding amount: $400K
Funding stage: Seed
Total funding to date: $500K
Investors: Edgo VC
Solfeh is a FinTech micro-lending platform, providing same-day emergency cash advancements to salaried employees. This way, employees of the companies that use Solfeh will be able to take an advance on their salary if needed, without having to wait for the usual payday.
**Please note that all data has been sourced from Crunchbase. Total funding denotes disclosed numbers, and lead investors are mentioned for all rounds, not only for the most recent one.
