Egypt Ventures Leads $1 Mln Financing Round for Start-up Nawah

Chairman and Managing Director of Egypt Ventures Ahmed Gomaa said that Egypt Ventures led a financing round for the emerging company, Nawah, the first private Egyptian multidisciplinary research center for natural and medical sciences, with a value of $1 million.

This is in line with Egypt Ventures to support and promote entrepreneurship in tech companies and technology-backed companies at the local and regional level.

Gomaa added that they were one of the first institutions supporting Nawah in enabling its scientific research in the Middle East and Africa. The new financing round will enable the company to expand its business and enter new markets.

He added that the new financing round raised the capital of Nawah to $2 million, led by Egypt Ventures. This also succeeded in attracting private sector investors, namely, Alexandria Fund, Cairo Angels, Alex Angels, Hult Alumni Angels, and a number of international investors.

Founder and CEO of Nawah Dr. Omar Sakr explained that his company has, since 2015, contributed to empowering the scientific community in Egypt; helping researchers and pharmaceutical companies by facilitating their work through various services. The company aims to help the MENA region have a future of distinguished scholars in scientific research.

Nawah is the first private Egyptian multi-disciplinary research center for natural and medical sciences that aims to empower the scientific community and provide various facilities for researchers and scientists to carry out their research and experiments by doing five basic tasks.

This includes analyzing samples by providing the latest devices and sending results to researchers, instead of analyzing samples abroad to save time and research resources.

The company also trains researchers on how to use devices, provides an opportunity for them to analyze their samples directly, conducts basic and advanced practical courses taught by Egyptian and foreign experts, and provides courses for companies and research groups - with the participation of universities and companies in scientific projects inside and outside Egypt.

There is also a focus on projects that have an added value to Egypt, as well as securing research in partnership with major incubators to move scientific discoveries into production and marketing phases.

Egypt Ventures secured direct and indirect investments with a total value of EGP 103.8 million during 2020 to develop the entrepreneurial environment and push forward emerging companies in Egypt.

This includes EGP 72.4 million direct investments in 6 companies and EGP 31.4 million indirect investments in a business accelerator. This brings the total investments since the company was established in 2017, to about EGP 306.2 million in 150 companies, of which EGP 139.9 million are direct investments and EGP 166.3 million are indirect investments.

According to the 2020 annual report of the Ministry of International Cooperation titled “International Partnerships for Sustainable Development”, the ministry secured development financing agreements worth $9.8 billion during the year; $6.7 billion for financing sovereign projects, and $3.1 billion in support of the private sector.

Within the portfolio of the Ministry of International Cooperation, there are currently 34 projects in innovation, digitalization, and entrepreneurship contributing to 13 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a total development financing of $1.014 billion; 4% of Egypt’s ODA portfolio. The total ODA portfolio amounts to $25 billion.