Tunisian startup Cynoia, which aims to become the ultimate collaboration hub for teams, has announced native language support for Swahili and Wolof, extending professional collaboration tools to over 200 million additional people across East and West Africa.
Founded in 2022 by Nasreddine Riahi and Ayoub Rabeh, Cynoia aims to simplify and optimise collaboration within companies. Its platform consolidates a comprehensive suite of essential tools, encompassing everything from chat and video conferencing to email and calendar management, document handling, and project management.
The startup secured US$930,000 in funding from investors including United Gulf Financial Services, 216 Capital Ventures, and Bpifrance in early-2024 to help it scale operations, and its addition of native language support for Swahili and Wolof means teams from Nairobi to Dakar can now manage projects, communicate, and collaborate using Cynoia’s all-in-one platform in their preferred language.
The addition of Swahili, spoken by 180 million people across East Africa, and Wolof, used by 20-25 million people primarily in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania, is the most significant accessibility advance in African business software this year. For the first time, teams across these regions can access enterprise-level project management, communication, and collaboration tools without language barriers.
“This is about more than translation – it’s about true inclusion,” said Riahi. “When a project manager in Mombasa or a startup team in Dakar can use professional tools in their native language, everything changes. Productivity increases, adoption accelerates, and teams can focus on their work instead of struggling with unfamiliar interfaces.”
