Do you possess a powerful idea that would have a social impact in Egypt in the fields of healthcare, education, renewable energy, transportation, agriculture, or waste management? Would your idea create a social impact for a marginalized community in the country or increase financial inclusion within it? If the answer is yes to any of the above, then StartEgypt might be on the lookout for you. Their aim is to empower and enable you to turn this idea into a social impact-driven startup ready to enter the market!
Francesca T. Bombassei, Venture Capital Analyst for the MENA region at Seedstars giving a speech at the StartEgypt Forum 2020. Photo Credits: StartEgypt – StartEgypt’s Facebook page.
Powered by Flat6Labs (the famed startup accelerator with 6 branches around the world), funded by the British Embassy in Cairo and supported by the International Finance Corporation (a member of the World Bank Group), StartEgypt is an entrepreneurial initiative on a mission to meet the country’s most challenging problems head-on through enabling and empowering social impact-driven entrepreneurs and startups in 8 areas of interest. Namely — these areas are education, healthcare, transportation, renewable energy, financial inclusion, marginalized communities, waste management and agriculture.
The judges at StartEgypt’s pitch competition discussing the pitches of the participating startups.
The StartEgypt Forum 2020 successfully wrapped up on January the 29th. The annual event hosted international speakers, mentors, startups, experts from a variety of industries and early-stage entrepreneurs unite under the bigger umbrella of social impact. Intense workshops, interesting panel discussions, a diverse startups exhibit, engaging activations and a pitch competition with prizes reaching up to EGP 100,000 kept the attendees busy and engaged.
Among the workshops offered at the event were ones sponsored by Google. And the thought-provoking panels ranged from questions on what it’s like to be a female founder to how impact investment is growing and shaping the world we live in.
Most notably, Francesca T. Bombassei, a venture capital analyst manager for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region at Seedstars (an international organisation aiming to positively change the lives of people in emerging markets through technology and entrepreneurship) attended the event as well. Bombassei took to the stage to talk about ‘Social Impact Investment: Social Investing for Profit and Purpose’.
“We’re shifting from a traditional model of business – where you do traditional investments with a side of impact – towards investments that equally favor profit and purpose,” Francesca T. Bombassei, venture capital analyst manager at Seedstars
After numerous conversations with all parties involved in the StartEgypt Forum, we can confidently take you through a quick tour of what StartEgypt is all about and why its forum matters.
What is StartEgypt all About?
StartEgypt is an incubator; this means it invites everyone with a powerful idea and a fervor for leading that idea into making an impact to sign up for an intense four-month cycle. You don’t have to have an established early-stage startup or an initial product to sign up. Within StartEgypt’s four months cycle, you get training, educational mentorship and coaching by industry leaders. Your startup shall also receive technical and business support in the aforementioned fields.
Attendees network and mingle at the StartEgypt Forum 2020 startups’ exhibit at the Greek Campus. Photo Via 925.
Recognizing the often overlooked potential of non-centralized cities, StartEgypt operates in Cairo, but also in Alexandria and Assiut. Each year, StartEgypt holds a forum that exhibits the startups that graduated from these cities; the StartEgypt Forum. This year, the StartEgypt Forum 2020 exhibited 45 startups, 11 of which competed for a prize pool of EGP 200,000. But it’s also a lot more!
The StartEgypt Forum 2020
Here’s a quick recap of the highlights you may have missed at the forum…
1. The Startup Huddle
The attendees at the StartEgypt Forum 2020in action. Photo Credits: StartEgypt – StartEgypt’s Facebook page.
The forum was initiated by the startup huddle; a chance for the founders of two startups to briefly present their companies that is followed by a 20-minute Q&A session. These startups were Chitosan Egypt (the MENA region’s leading chitosan solutions provider) and Explore Agora (a startup looking to innovate the way self-directed learning takes place through a mobile application).
2. The StartEgypt Fight Club Competition
Attendees at the StartEgypt Forum 2020 in action. Photo via 925.
The competition invited four startups that graduated from StartEgypt’s cycle to go head-to-head with one another. Each pitch lasted for 5 minutes and the competition was held over three rounds while the audience voted for the startup that intrigued them the most through their smartphones.
3. The Female Founders Panel
The Female Founders panel at the StartEgypt Forum 2020. Photo Credits: StartEgypt -StartEgypt’s Facebook page.
What’s it like being a female entrepreneur in Egypt? What support do they need and what support is already available for them in the market? What challenges do they face. That’s what StartEgypt’s ‘Female Founders Panel’ was built to tackle just that.
This panel featured Sabrine Assem, Alexandrian cofounder and CEO of Untap; Ola Salah Eldeen, cofounder of iMedical from Assiut; Aya ElGebeely, Cairene CEO of Talents Arena and Shayma Fayed, founder and managing director of Intaj – who is also from Cairo.
4. The Ecosystem Activation
Attendees at the StartEgypt Forum 2020 in action. Photo Credits: StartEgypt – StartEgypt’s Facebook page.
A refreshing run through the fundamentals and highlights of the startup ecosystem in Egypt and around the world was presented to the StartEgypt Forum 2020 audience through an interactive, mobile-based quiz. The quiz went over basic questions about the accelerators of the Egyptian startup ecosystem to trickier and more in-depth ones on Silicon Valley’s giants.
5. An Impact Investment Panel
The panel on impact investment at the StartEgypt Forum 2020. Photo Credits: StartEgypt – StartEgypt’s Facebook page.
As an investor in the Egyptian market, what are the available offerings related to social impact investment. What aspects does the investor look for in a startup? Those were some of the questions discussed in the StartEgypt Forum 2020. The panel exposed some of the successful impact-driven startups and the types of support they were provided.
The panel featured Tarek Hegazy, partner at LimeVest Partners; Tamer Azer, a principal at Sawari Ventures; Dina ElSherif, CEO and cofounder at Ahead of the Curve; Amr AlAshakr, chief information technology officer at Cleopatra Hospital Group. and Mohamed Rahmy, managing director at Endeavor. The moderator of this impressive line-up was the general manager of Cairo Angels, Zeina Mandour.
6. A Speech on Social Impact Investment by Seedstars Venture Capital Analyst Manager, Francesca T. Bombassei
Francesca T. Bombassei, Venture Capital Analyst for the MENA region at Seedstars at the StartEgypt Forum 2020.
Francesca T. Bombassei is a venture capital analyst manager at Seedstars, an organization focused on impacting people’s lives through entrepreneurship and technology. She gave a speech at the StartEgypt Forum 2020 titled ‘Social Impact Investment: Social Investing for Profit and Purpose’.
“An increasing amount of impact investors are dedicated to SDGs and they’re aligning their investments with the SDGs. This is a switch in the mentalities and it is good news,” emphasized Bombassei enthusiastically at the StartEgypt Forum 2020. “Amongst investors in general, more and more are turning towards impact investment. What does that mean? Well, it means we’re shifting from a traditional model of business – where you do traditional investments with a side of impact – towards investments that equally favor profit and purpose,” she continued.
7. StartEgypt’s Pitch Competition
Winners of the StartEgypt pitch competition taking a photo with the organization’s team. Photo Credits: StartEgypt – StartEgypt’s Facebook page.
11 of StartEgypt’s startup graduates participated in a pitch competition. The first prize was EGP 100,000, the second EGP 50,000, the third EGP 20,000 and the fourth and fifth EGP 10,000. Here are the five startups that won:
- Pyro: Coming in first and scoring EGP 100,000, Pyro – from the environment sector – offers an on-site customized pyrolysis system which transforms all agricultural waste to bio-charcoal. The startups’ team includes chemical engineers and
- Bio Feedx: From the healthcare sector, this startup won the second prize of EGP 50,000. Their business model is centered around a wearable gadget and an app that accurately measure and visualize the muscles’ electrical activity during workouts and further enhances the remote monitoring of patients.
- Mycelium: In the sector of agriculture and in order to create sustainable products that can replace the wasteful and harmful plastics utilized for packaging, construction, and furniture, this startup grows the biodegradable and environmentally friendly biopolymer known as mycelium through agricultural waste.
- Banlastic: In the fourth place, winning EGP 10,000, the environmental startup Banlastic offers reusable and eco-friendly shopping bags in an attempt to rid as many Egyptians as possible of the single-use plastics they use to carry their groceries.
- Shalta: Coming in fifth and also winning EGP 10,000, Shalta – another startup in the sector of agriculture – is set out to introduce an app that helps farmers with daily operations, irrigation, fertilization and the detection of crop diseases.
The Pyro team taking a picture on stage with judges and members of the StartEgypt team after they’ve won first place. Photo Credits: StartEgypt – StartEgypt’s Facebook page.
Nearing the end of the event, Ahmed El Alfi, founder of Flat6labs, directed a message to the audience, “Your job is to fix the problems my generation left you. That’s the biggest advice I can give you. My generation left you a lot of problems. Our job is to help you solve those problems.”
To find out more about StartEgypt, apply to their program or learn more about their graduate startups, head to their Facebook page.
