This Egyptian Tech Founder Secured $20 million for His Startup

Egyptian seasoned tech entrepreneur Ahmed Sabbah is the founder of mobility platform Swvl Holdings Corp., which recently made history by becoming the first company from Africa to list on Nasdaq through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

However, Sabbah’s foray into entrepreneurship didn’t begin there; it began with the opening of Goyastores, a company that regrettably shut down a year after its establishment. Sabbah persisted in his enthusiasm for entrepreneurship despite this early setback.

Swvl Holdings Corp., a ride-hailing firm that has been a huge success and just listed on Nasdaq, was founded by him and Egyptian tech tycoon Mostafa Kandil out of a commitment to solving real-world issues and reducing traffic congestion in Cairo.

But Sabbah wasn’t one to sit back and rest on his success. He established Telda in 2021, a financial company created especially for millennials and Generation Z. Telda aims to give an alternative to the conventional banking system and to ease and facilitate peer-to-peer payments.

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Securing $20 million seed funding

In October of this year, Ahmed Sabbah secured $20 million in seed funding for Telda in a round led by investors, including Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey’s Block Inc. This shows that his efforts to provide financial services to the general public in Egypt have not gone unnoticed.

The financial infusion shows that investors still have faith in Telda and other local entrepreneurs to have a positive social and economic impact.

Telda will use the seed money to expand quickly into other nations, establish its technological foundation, and enhance its product line. Additionally, it will help to increase worldwide confidence in the region’s economic and financial prospects, opening doors for upcoming fintech enterprises.

Tech entrepreneurs like Ahmed Sabbah are essential to expanding North Africa’s access to financial services.

Due to the internet’s and cell phones’ quick uptake, these businesspeople now have more opportunities to use technology to solve problems in the real world. Their work not only helps local people and businesses, but it also fosters disruptive technologies that add value to the African tech sector.

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