Three Egyptian startups are among the 12 companies from across the MENA region selected to join the Techstars Riyadh accelerator, which provides US$120,000 in funding and other scaling support.
Run in partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Communications and IT (MCIT) and Raed Ventures, Techstars Riyadh invests US$120,000 in each selected company and provides hands-on mentorship and access to the Techstars network.
Three Egyptian startups are included in the latest cohort, which also includes startups from the likes of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They are Tegarti, a cloud-based point of sale and retail management platform; Glamera, which helps users to book appointments for beauty services from service providers; and Untap, an all-in-one software used by organisations to plan, launch, manage, and assess online innovation and talent acquisition programmes.
The 13-week programme began earlier this month and culminates with a demo day on February 17, 2022.
For Tegarti, the selection for Techstars Riyadh coincided with the full launch of its platform, after an April soft-launch that saw its app receive more than 3,000 downloads from Egypt and other countries across the MENA region.
Tegarti serves merchants of varying sizes with features and accessibilities that varies based on the industry type, size of the business, and provided services. However, the company provides a unified experience for its point of sale, which is a crucial point for the user experience.
“We’re building an ecosystem for merchants. Yes it’s a long journey and the game is on. Consequently, merchants will be able to use Tegarti for every aspect of their business needs soon. Furthermore, instead of solo-building everything, we choose to partner with ecosystem players who share our vision towards creating a more added value and a coherent solution for merchants,” said co-founder Abdalaziz Elbahnasy.