RiseUp concludes, entrepreneurs get more corporate attention

CAIRO – 3 December 2017: Thousands of entrepreneurs were gathered for the fifth year in a row at the heart of Downtown Cairo, Egypt, to attend the leading entrepreneurship event in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, RiseUp Summit.

Over three days, RiseUp Summit attracted 150 startups, 500 investors, 150 speakers, 50 startups in the pitching phase and 5,000 attendees.

Taking place at the GrEEK Campus and the American University’s Main Tahrir Campus, the theme of this year’s summit was “Innovation to Improve Human Experience”, promoting creativity and technology in this field.

The government has been present at the summit this year as Minister of Investment Sahar Nasr visited the campus, where state-owned startup incubation program “Fekretak Sherketak” was present to market their programs and cycles.

“The government is a catalyst for the market, and it should also be driven by the private sector…the government should create an enabling environment to support startups to grow, protect their rights and help them get established in Egypt,” chairman of Egypt Ventures and senior economic advisor to the ministry Shehab Marzban said in his speech.

CEO of Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding and business tycoon Naguib Sawiris also gave a speech during the third day of RiseUp. “Very thrilled to be at RiseUp Summit…a vibrant atmosphere of promising entrepreneurs,” Sawiris commented through his twitter account.

In a trend this year, corporations have announced several programs for entrepreneurs. Dubai-headquartered investor The Abraaj Group launched an investment and ecosystem building platform called “Bakery” to provide entrepreneurs with an ability to build scalable solutions.

Human siri application, Elves, was also able to seed over $2 million in investment, to mark the largest seed in the region, from Emaar Industries & Investments, The Dubai Angels, the Kauffman Fellows Syndicate and other global firms.

“We’re excited to get this funding from Emaar and the rest of our investors. Their investment –coupled with rapid adoption and our plans around marketing and product development– is a strong endorsement of our vision,” said Ahmed Kassem, Partner and CBO of Elves.

More programs were announced as well. PepsiCo launched an entrepreneurship program called “Snacks Innovation Challenge” to grow seed and help early stage startups in the food and beverage industry.

The program will provide mentorship, expertise, exposure and training to startups in Egypt, in addition to technical assistance.

Leading local publisher Nahdet Misr Group also announced an investment fund for education technology entrepreneurs under the name of “EdVentures”.

RiseUp Summit partnered this year with venture capital Algebra Ventures, university-based accelerator and incubator, AUC Venture Lab, and entrepreneurial investment company, A15. This is in addition to MENA’s leading entrepreneurship platform Wamda, e-hailing service applications, Uber and Careem, and the British Council.