Storyline
- As according to Magnitt latest report, Egyptian start-up ventures have successfully accounted for more than one-fifth of financing deals in the Mena territory.
- Venture capital investments in Egypt have nurtured up at a compound annual rate of 100 percent over the preceding five years. With 114 transactions in 2020, Egyptian start-ups reported for 22 percent of all transactions, coming in second in volume terms behind the UAE, which reported for 26 per cent of all Mena dealings.
- Backing up start-ups and evolving digital infrastructure in the most populous Arab nation is amidst the topmost priorities of the Egyptian government, which is raging up its “Digital Egypt” initiative and offering up the legislative provision to bring more technology ventures to the nation.
As per a new report courtesy, the data platform Magnitt, titled 2020 Egypt Venture Investment Report, the overall cumulative funding arranged into Egyptian start-ups soared 30 percent year-on-year, advanced than the 13 percent progress in venture capital investment recorded across the province.
Start-ups in Egypt obtained out a record $190 million in funding the preceding year, accounting for more than one-fifth of every single venture capital contract in the broader Middle East and North Africa zone.
Amr Talaat, Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology stated in the report, that was also sponsored by the nation’s IT Industry Development Agency that; “Egypt is home to the region’s largest start-up ecosystem. We treasure this fact and back it. Today, we see Egyptian start-ups driving culture change in the business environment; proactively and innovatively addressing societal and economic needs. As well as The digital start-up section is evolving in Egypt and is actuality reinforced by “progressive legislation, diverse technical capacity-building programmes and novel funding mechanisms.”
Egyptian contract volumes were down 14 percent on an annual basis. The weakening in activity was principally accredited to the drop in the number of accelerator planning agenda. Enhanced deals were accountable for almost half, 48 percent, of the overall transactions in the nation during 2019, plummeting to just 20 percent in 2020, according to the report.
Magnitt added that the digital transformation undergone in 2020 had a positive effect on the e-commerce and healthcare sectors, with the amount of e-commerce start-ups obtaining the funding augmenting by 64 percent year-on-year, procuring a total of $18m. Ventures operating in the healthcare ecosystem recorded a 1,600 percent progress in capital positioning, amounting to $57m.
As according to the Magnitt report’s findings “Vezeeta’s Series D round accumulated $40m alone … [and] venture investment into transport demonstrated resilience against Covid-19’s global impact on the sector, [as] Swyvl’s $26m [fundraise] and Halan’s $15m put the industry in second place.”
Both the UAE and Egypt are “financially attractive locations with competitive compensation and infrastructure costs, strong entrepreneurial cultures and public sectors willing to make strategic investments”, the Kearney report stated.
Egypt was encompassed among the top 20 economies globally in management consultancy Kearney’s index that supports businesses decide on the location of their offshore operations.
The North African economy documented a score of 5.62 percent on the index and was graded 15th globally in the 2021 Kearney Global Services Location Index. The index scrutinizes 47 metrics across four foremost categories: financial attractiveness, people skills and availability, business environment and digital resonance.
