Organon and Flat6Labs launch the Femtech Accelerator Program to help female-founded digital health start-ups, across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), succeed by providing support to build products, test market fit, and improve business models.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates – 26 October 2021: A global healthcare company with the vision of creating a better and healthier every day for every woman around the world, Organon, in partnership with Flat6Labs, the MENA region’s leading seed and early-stage venture capital firm, launched the Femtech Accelerator Program to support female-led start-ups operating in the digital healthcare space in MENA. The partnership was signed in the Expo 2020, USA Pavilion, marking the launch of Organon in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey. The partnership is the kickoff of the company’s vision to work closely with partners in the region to empower innovative women’s healthcare programs.

Commenting on the program, Susanne Fiedler, Chief Commercial Officer of Organon, said, “As a new regional healthcare entity with a commitment to advancing the health of women in this region, we are very excited to launch this program supporting female entrepreneurs. We know that investing in women has far-reaching benefits, reaping dividends for families, local and national communities, and economies. We will continue to listen to women’s needs to better understand the gaps and identify the right solutions for a better and healthier every day for her.”

Ramy Koussa, Associate Vice President at Organon MENAT, added: “COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation across industries, including healthcare. Due to restrictions on our movements and the strain on healthcare services globally, digital transformation has served as an important tool to enable both management of the coronavirus, as well as maintaining essential healthcare services. The future of healthcare is digital, and this accelerator program has been created to help facilitate that transformation in our region by delivering new and innovative digital tools to improve women’s healthcare. Organon is committed to building a company based on Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles and today’s announcement represents an important milestone in our commitment to working in partnership with key stakeholders across MENAT to advance women’s health”

 

 

 

Dina El-Shenoufy, Chief Investment Officer at Flat6labs, added, “Globally, both the current start-up landscape as well as the healthcare industry are male-dominated spaces. If we are to achieve greater gender equity, while supporting economic development across MENA, we need to do more to support female entrepreneurs and advance women’s healthcare. Our newly launched Femtech accelerator will meet this need and that of greater digital innovation in the healthcare space while demonstrating the importance of cross-industry collaboration to further the goals of female economic empowerment.”

Those start-ups selected to participate in the accelerator program will be female-founded and demonstrate that they can address unmet women’s needs in line with Organon’s mission to advance women’s health. Ten of the best start-ups will be invited to join the two-month intensive accelerator program following a selection process and receive support in turning their idea into a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and securing venture funding.

Flat6labs will provide business and technical training and access to their local and regional partner networks. Participating start-ups will be connected to businesses, local and international experts, and access big data and new opportunities. Organon, meanwhile, will mentor participants, connect them with global industry experts, and provide access to their entire business network, including internal teams and external partners.

Cairo, Egypt. 11th of October, 2021.

Flat6Labs, MENA’s leading seed and early-stage VC firm and the manager of the most renowned startup programs in the region, celebrates 10 years of supporting startups and empowering entrepreneurs all over the region. Launched in Cairo in 2011 by the founders of Sawari Ventures, Flat6Labs has since expanded to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Tunisia, Beirut, Bahrain, and most recently Jordan. The firm is currently managing 8 seed funds across the MENA region with a total value amounting to USD 85 million, with over 25 institutional investors and limited partners.

“Since day one, Flat6Labs has been there to enable thousands of ambitious entrepreneurs to pursue their startups’ journey towards growth, by giving them an unparalleled opportunity to work with an expansive network that includes hundreds of business mentors, investors, and corporates. said Ramez El-Serafy, Flat6Labs’ CEO. “We’re extremely proud to be celebrating 10 years as we look back to our fruitful work with our institutional investors, partners, startups, and community. It’s only onwards and upwards from here.”

In the past decade, Flat6Labs has funded over 1,000 startups that have been vetted from over 23,000 applications, and more than 2,000 founders supported, 36% of them being female founders.

The firm’s regional network has more than 1000 mentors and coaches from all over the world, and 300+ corporate, governmental, and ecosystem partners. Currently, the Flat6Labs portfolio companies have thus far raised over USD 70 million in follow-on funding, and directly helped create more than 4,000 new jobs.

This milestone was marked with a grand ceremony that took place in Manial Palace last night. The event saw presence from all Flat6Labs offices across MENA, partners, startups, and mentors. The activities included panels with regional key opinion leaders, talks by Flat6Labs’ Limited Partners, and a celebration of Flat6Labs’ portfolio and achievements over the last decade.

Flat6Labs, a regional seed and early stage VC firm, announced today the second close, and increase of its Tunisia-based Anava Seed Fund (ASF) from $3 million to $10 million, expanding its impact through world-class startup programs across the North African markets. This is following a recent second close of Egypt-based Flat6Labs Accelerator Company fund (FAC) to $13 million back in May of 2021 to support Egyptian early-stage startups.

The Anava Seed Fund was launched in 2017 in partnership with the Tunisian American Enterprise Fund, BIAT Bank and Meninx Holding, to invest in 75 Tunisian early-startups in a five-year period.

VC Firm Sawari Ventures Joins as the Latest Significant Investor in ASF

 

Sawari Ventures is the latest addition to the investors of the Anava Seed Fund, with an investment amount of $1.6 million. “We are very proud of our investment in the Anava Seed Fund as we have closely followed their progress and are more than convinced that Tunisia has talented entrepreneurs working on promising start-ups” said Wael Amin, Managing Partner at Sawari Ventures. 

 

During the last 4 years, the Anava Seed Fund successfully invested in over 50 startups in Tunisia between seed, follow-on and Pre-Series A tickets, operating in 22 different sectors that vary between Fintech, Education, Agri-tech, Delivery Services, Retail-Tech, Health tech, and Aeronautics. These startups have succeeded in creating more than 500 paying jobs, 61% of which are occupied by female talents.

Ramez El-Serafy, CEO at Flat6Labs, said, “We’re very excited about our latest second close for the Tunisia-based Anava Seed Fund, we believe that the North African markets hold untapped potential and unique business opportunities, and I’m happy to see that more and more investors are sharing our enthusiasm towards this rapidly growing market by increasing their commitments in both FAC Egypt Fund and Anava Seed Fund. We look forward to expanding our impact even further in North Africa with the support of our investors and partners.”

Flat6Labs has trained more than 440 entrepreneurs and invested in 130 startups with a total amount of $10.5 million through its Cairo and Tunis Seed funds. It’s also worth mentioning that Flat6Labs startups in North Africa have gone on to raise over $37 million in follow-on funding.

Applications are now open for Flat6Labs’ Tunis Seed program, apply here.

Cairo, 1st of August 2021 –

Eight exceptional Egyptian startups have just graduated from Flat6Labs Cairo Seed Program’s 16th cycle, which comes after over 230 hours of online business training to help them grow their customer base, refine their offerings, expand to new markets and build strategic partnerships.

On the premise of pumping fresh blood in Egypt’s economy, Flat6Labs’ seed program in Cairo provides a steady pipeline of 18 to 20 new promising startups to the local VC market every year. In fact, the eight graduating startups have been filtered from around 1000 applications coming from all over Egypt.

“As the startup ecosystem in Egypt continues to mature, the number of applications for our seed program has been increasing cycle on cycle. But it’s not just the number of applications, we’re also witnessing a rise in the quality of the pipeline and startups applying and joining our program,” says Albert Malaty, Managing Director of Flat6Labs Cairo Seed Program.

 

Each startup has received a seed investment starting from EGP 500,000 and up to EGP 750,000 in cash funding in exchange for up to 10% equity. “We have recently completed the second close of our EGP 207 million Egypt based fund, having received massive support from all our anchor investors. The current fund size allows us to provide a more suitable investment to our startups at the current turbulent times, helping them attract the right talents, acquire more customers, and survive longer,” says Marie Therese Fam, Managing Partner of Flat6Labs Egypt.

Flat6Labs’ Spring 2021 Cycle started in Cairo on March 14^th, 2021 to help build the following eight resilient startups that have developed products and services across multiple sectors including health-tech, supplies and logistics, eCommerce, food and beverage, fintech and advertising.

CreditFins, Inc.

Aiming to alleviate financial stress for millions of users in the region, CreditFins built Egypt’s first tech-enabled credit cards management platform to help customers analyze and optimize their spending, CreditFins also offers different educational content empowering customers to settle their credit card debt quickly and cheaper.

CreditFins’ website: www.creditfins.com
Contact founder form: bit.ly/contact-CreditFins

dKilo

This technology company puts remotely-managed digital advertisements on moving vehicles. In four months, dKilo was able to successfully deploy 10 cars generating EGP 75,000 in monthly revenues and 6 million impressions monthly.

dKilo’s website: www.dkilo.com
Contact founder form: bit.ly/contact-dKilo

The Deli Llamas

With “School Lunchies,” a flagship brand of kid-specific lunch meals, food-tech startup, The Deli Llamas , design meals to promote balanced nutrition, autonomy and an enjoyable experience. School Lunchies is a web platform to order freshly-made lunches, delivered daily to schools. Hopping on that summer bandwagon, The Deli Llamas were able to close deals with two retailers in the North Coast.

The Deli Llamas’ website: www.lunchies.me/

Contact founder form: bit.ly/contact-TheDeliLlamas

The Baby Garage

Next to its 360 degrees parents support platform, The Baby Garage is also a shopping advisory marketplace for children’s products and services. Jumping by 70% in revenues this year, the team runs a number of various business units including the marketplace, the content blog, the discount cards, and on-ground activations currently serving 550 thousand parents in Egypt. The Baby Garage started in 2015 and evolved officially under the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center in the Ministry of telecommunication in 2019.

The Baby Garage website: www.thebabygarage.com

Contact founder form: bit.ly/contact-TheBabyGarage

ELSupplier

This B2B wholesaler lead generation platform is Egypt’s first online platform allowing suppliers to list their products and services. ELSupplier’s tech solution amplifies the supplier’s reachability allowing them to penetrate new markets at much lower costs while saving sales executives hundreds of hours. Since the launch of the cycle, ELSupplier generated EGP 160,000 in revenue and acquired 4,000 new users.

ELSupplier’s website: www.elsupplier.com

Contact founder form: bit.ly/contact-ELSupplier

Intixel

Launched in September 2018, Intixel is a health-tech startup supporting medical imaging companies with the needed image-analytics engines. In December 2020, Intixel launched its first clinically validated product; AIRA Breast; to empower radiologists in breast-cancer screening programs with its AI-powered solutions. Intixel’s team is a finely selected AI, and medical imaging experts. Intixel just released the beta version of its AIRA Breast product, currently running on the cloud for online use.

Intixel’s website: www.intixel.com

Contact founder form: bit.ly/contact-Intixel

Lumiere

The go-to destination for affordable luxury, Lumiere, kicked off in late 2020, bringing together a community of the most exciting independent luxury brands and contemporary, emerging designers hailing from different regions and diverse cultural backgrounds across the globe. So far, they offer over 2500 stock-keeping units for 30 different designers listed on their website.

Lumiere’s website: www.getlumiere.com

Contact founder form: bit.ly/contact-Lumiere

Nureab

Already the leading manufacturer of rehabilitation robots in the MENA region, Nureab offers innovative motor rehabilitation devices to accelerate patients’ recovery times and results making the recovery journey for patients with mobility disabilities easier. With Nureab’s product – which is 95% done and in its phase 3 of trials – physical therapists can accurately monitor their patients’ progress to offer them the most suitable treatment plans.

Nureab’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/nureabCo
Contact founder form: bit.ly/contact-Nureab

Over the past four months, the teams of the aforementioned startups have received intensive training on topics ranging from Financial Modeling, Business Modeling, Growth Hacking, Storytelling for Business, and Technology Pitfalls, to Pricing, How to be Investor Ready, Product UX/UI, and Strategic Partnerships.

• The next cycle will commence in September, prospective startups can apply through this link

Flat6Labs celebrated its 7th Demo Day in Tunis on Thursday, July 8, in an online event that gathered more than 1000 live viewers. The ceremony was also an opportunity to announce a new investor in the Anava Seed Fund, Flat6Labs’ investment vehicle in Tunisia: Sawari Ventures.

The Demo Day commemorates the 4 months of work that the startups have done with Flat6Labs since the beginning of each cycle. It’s an opportunity to showcase their growth to a range of potential stakeholders: customers, investors, companies, and more, who will be willing to further support the scalability of these businesses. Since 2011, Flat6Labs has organized more than 40 Demo Days, giving more than 320 startups visibility and a chance to grow in the region and around the world.

Sawari Ventures, one of the leading venture capitals in the Arab world, joined TAEF, BIAT, Meninx Holding and the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank group, with an investment amount of 4.5 million Dinars.

“We are very proud of our investment in Anava Seed Fund. We have been following their progress closely and we are more than convinced that Tunisia has brilliant entrepreneurs working on very promising startups” says Wael Amin, Partner at Sawari Ventures.

The startups supported during the 7th cycle of Flat6Labs in Tunis are:

• -Ahkili: A mental healthcare booking platform connecting psychologists to patients through telemedicine
• -Dokken: A one-stop-shop solution for business owners looking to create their websites in less than 5 minutes and for a low monthly fee
• -LAMMA: An urban carpooling app that focuses on comfort while reducing time and money spent on daily mobility
• -Ms. Marion: An innovative ready-to-wear brand dedicated to working women in formal working environments
• -Proservy: A platform that digitizes office administration, management and logistics to help companies focus on their core business
• -Reedz: A mobile app that offers Arabic language podcasts & interactive book summaries in text and audio formats
• -Shifti: A centralized online management solution that facilitates the creation of custom e-commerce websites and automates management tasks
• -WeMove: An online fitness marketplace for pay per use gym passes

It is possible to get in touch with the startups through this link.

Building Capacities for 20 Regional Supporting Structures in Tunisia

Launched by Flat6Labs, Ignite Tunisia is a capacity building program for regional support structures in Tunisia and is a part of the “Innov’i” initiative which is funded by the European Union and implemented by Expertise France.

 

Given the fact that 90% of startup support structures are based in the capital Tunis, Ignite Tunisia is a program that aims to boost regional ecosystems by transferring skills and expertise in the implementation of support programs for startups that Flat6Labs has acquired for more than a decade of operation across the MENA region. The program will be implemented during 24 months and will support 20 structures over 3 cohorts.

More than 80 support structures from all over Tunisia have applied to be part of the first cohort of Ignite Tunisia and benefit from a total review to their program and access to the extensive network of experts, mentors and investors from Flat6Labs

 

“Ignite Tunisia was born after a reflection of more than two years. We were able to identify the challenges encountered by regional support structures, which can range from the implementation of a program appropriate to the needs of entrepreneurs in each region to the economic model of the said structures. Through Ignite Tunisia , we have set ourselves the goal of transferring skills to enable regional structures and startups to have an active and innovative ecosystem” confirms Yehia Houry, Managing Director of Flat6Labs.

Ignite Tunisia ensures to provide the necessary tools to put together a clear strategy in order to build the capacities of 20 structures such as incubators, co-working spaces, non-governmental organizations as well as public structures operating directly with startups. The main goal is to ensure the viability of the structures and to capitalize on the number of startups created in the regions.

 

The program will also include the gathering of a community composed of multiple structures in order to optimize exchanges and facilitate contacts between the different actors.

Ignite Tunisia also aims to provide specific responses to the needs of innovative support structures, by offering a multitude of training to guarantee their success and sustainability and especially, the creation of a regional strategy.

 

“By supporting 20 structures in the different cities, Flat6Labs contributes to increased regional integration of the Tunisian ecosystem and creates a better climate and  networking opportunities to support entrepreneurs. It is also a great way for disseminating the culture of innovation and for opening up access to new opportunities for project leaders ”adds Clara Guilhem, Innov’i project manager.

 

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