Founded in 2015, Nawah Scientific provides an online platform that collects experiment requests, collects samples, conducts tests and returns results digitally. Its main focus is to enable scientists to conduct high-quality research, regardless of their location.
The start-up has engrained itself in Egypt’s pharmaceutical industry and has analysed over 50,000 samples in nine countries from more than 3,000 customers. A second pre-Series A round worth US$1 million in equity and debt funding has now been raised, bringing its overall financing to US$2 million ahead of a scheduled Series A round to take place later in 2021.
The round is led by Egypt Ventures, an Egyptian government-backed fund and one of the early investors of Nawah, and also includes, as well as many foreign angels, the newly founded Alexandria Fund (AF), Cairo Angels, Alex Angels and Hult Alumni Angels.
Nawah has increased its analytical facilities by five times in 2020 and aims to grow rapidly into more vertical sectors, such as the dairy, agriculture and petrochemical industries, all of which are highly dependent on quality control tests.
“Every day, I realise that Nawah’s potential is way beyond our initial imagination and that we are barely scratching the surface. Our work has significantly empowered the scientific society in Egypt and we are expanding next year to surrounding countries with an aggressive plan to cover MENA and Africa in the foreseeable future. I’m extremely thankful to the amazing team of scientists who is making this happen,” Nawah’s founder Dr Omar Sakr said.
Ahmed Gomaa, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Egypt Projects, said his company had a strong mandate to help outstanding Egyptian start-ups that add real value to the Egyptian community.
“We have witnessed Nawah firsthand and we have seen how they deliver on their promise to empower scientific research in the entire MEA region. We are thrilled to be part of their journey as they scale their offerings and expand into new markets,” he said.
