Issue 149: Egyptian Startups Dominate Funding Scenes Through the First Two Weeks of May

The African startup funding scene has taken on a more subdued pace through Q2 2025. This slowdown is especially evident with only seven major funding round announcements recorded in the first half of May. Interestingly, North African heavyweights—Nawy, MNT Halan, Konnect, iSupply, and Career 180—dominated the headlines. Dive into the details of these funding rounds below. Nawy Funding Round: Series A Debt and Equity ($75 million) Investors: Partech, e & Capital, March Capital, DPI via Nclude, VKAV, and Shorooq Founded: Egypt, 2019 Founders: Mostafa El-Beltagy, Mohamed Abou Ghanima, Abdel-Azim Osman, Ahmed Rafea, and Aly Rafea About Company Nawy was founded with one goal: addressing Egypt ’ s fragmented and opaque housing market by making it more transparent and accessible. What began as a response to frustration has grown into the largest funded proptech in Africa. Nawy started as a simple listings platform but has since evolved into an ecosystem that incorporates property management (Nawy Unlocked), fractional ownership (Nawy Shares), mortgage financing, and even a tool for businesses used by over 3,000 brokerages. What Next The new funding will further reinforce Nawy’s efforts as it positions itself as a leading proptech in North Africa and at the forefront of redefining the real estate market in the region. Verto Funding Round: Prize Money ($1 Million) Investors: Milken-Motsepe Award Founded: 2018 Founders: Ola Oyetayo and Anthony Oduwole About Company Although not domiciled in Africa, Verto is a pan-African company focused on streamlining cross-border and cross-continent payments for businesses. The company’s digital solutions are designed to help businesses navigate fragmented and often overlooked currency corridors, eliminating intermediary fees and accelerating settlement times in currency exchange, especially for thinly traded currencies. What Next The win is a plus to Verto’s growing credibility and adds to its resource pool, enabling it to further strengthen its position in the super-competitive financial services and payments landscape. MNT Halan Funding Round: $49 Million Investors: Public Debt Market Founded: 2018, Egypt Founders: Mounir Nakhla and Ahmed Mohsen About Company One of the more recent unicorns out of Africa, MNT-Halan is a fintech company established to bank the unbanked and replace cash with electronic solutions. The company offers a super app that includes a consumer-facing app, a merchant app, distributed loan and payment processing software, as well as a range of payment solutions. What Next This move mirrors an ongoing trend in the fintech space, where several companies are leveraging public debt markets to secure capital without losing shares. The funds are expected to be used to further solidify the company’s offerings and improve its reach across the MENA region. Career 180 Funding Round: Undisclosed Investors: Den VC Founded: Egypt, 2016 Founders: Shrouk Alaa El Din and Mohamed Akmal About Company Career 180 is an edtech company focused on assisting individuals in transitioning into their chosen career paths with ease. The company operates a career upskilling platform featuring a learning management system designed to train individuals and prepare them for the world of work. What differentiates Career 180 is how it integrates skills training with real job pipelines through partnerships with companies, instead of just focusing on content aggregation. What Next The company plans to leverage the funds to scale its learning management system, make its course content more accessible for Arabic-speaking audiences, and deepen its reach across the MENA region. Zeepay Funding Round: Debt ($18 million) Investors: Undisclosed Founded: Ghana, 2014 Founder: Andrew Takyi-Appiah About Company Zeepay is a leading fintech company operating one of the largest remittance termination networks in Africa. The company’s solution connects international money transfer operators such as MoneyGram to mobile wallets across more than 20 countries. Essentially, the company’s solution was designed to address financial exclusion problems in the African and Caribbean markets by integrating remittances with mobile money services. What Next The company will invest the newly secured funds into working capital and float financing. This move is crucial to maintaining liquidity in its mobile money business. iSupply Funding Round: $3 Million Investors: Bokra Founded: Egypt, 2022 Founders: Ibrahim Emam, Malek Sultan, and Moustafa Zaki About Company iSupply is a medtech company aiming to digitise the pharmaceutical business across MENA. The company provides a one-stop digital shop for pharmaceutical products. Its solutions are primarily focused on helping pharmaceutical retailers predict and overcome supply chain disruptions. What Next The funding is expected to be invested into scaling up the company’s operations and expanding access to medical supplies for consumers across Egypt, particularly in underserved regi