Participated · Equity · Feb 2024

Rize offers a Rent Now..Pay Later product intended to make flexible monthly installments the standard for residential and commercial leases. The company was founded in 2021 by Ibrahim Balilah (Co-Founder & CEO) and Mohammed AlFraihi (Co-Founder & CTO). It plans to expand across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and align with government initiatives and the Ejar platform to streamline and regulate the real estate market. To support its real estate investments the company closed a $2.9 million seed round and simultaneously raised additional debt. Investors in the round included a group of angel investors plus Seedra Ventures, Hala Ventures, JOA Capital, RZM Investments, Bonat Investments, and Nama Ventures. Management says the funding will support growth and further development of tenant-friendly, technology-driven rental solutions.

Participated · Seed · Jan 2024

iStoria offers a specialized English-learning app built around graded reader stories, comprehension questions, and rigorous vocabulary tests to help students pass language exams. The app emphasizes vocabulary expansion and provides additional cutting‑edge features to enhance user experience. iStoria has partnered with multiple private and public schools to integrate the app into curricula, enabling supervised classroom use. It reports over a million learners globally and a 4.6‑star App Store rating. The product is a Saudi-based project developed in collaboration with Oxford and delivered by a team of more than 20 professionals. Founded in March 2022 by Eng. Abdullah Al‑Jaberi, the company plans to use new funding to further develop the platform, drive innovation, and expand its global student base.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2023

Termii is a YC-backed API-based communications platform that enables businesses—particularly fintechs—to engage customers via SMS, voice messaging, mobile tokens, alerts and two-way support. Founded in 2017, the company serves a growing base of enterprise customers through both APIs and a no-code campaign dashboard. Termii reports that over 10,000 businesses now rely on its platform monthly, up from 500+ fintech customers in 2021, and message transactions climbed from one million to 400 million. Annual recurring revenue reportedly increased 30x over that period. The company recently launched TermiiGo, a B2B2C mobile app offering time-based OTPs, direct-to-mobile notifications, local/international calling and global eSIM activation under an MVNO-like model. Termii plans to expand product offerings (calls, OTPs, eSIM) and enter Francophone African markets beginning with Ivory Coast, with planned physical launches in Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana and the U.S. Termii offers an API-based communications platform-as-a-service that enables businesses to send multichannel messaging (WhatsApp, voice, SMS) and perform customer verification and authentication. Founded by Gbolade Emmanuel and Ayomide Awe and launched in 2017, Termii targets B2B2C customers and has attracted more than 500 fintech startups and over 1,000 businesses and developers to its platform. Instead of a subscription model, Termii uses a virtual wallet tied to a bank account and charges per message and per successful verification, accepting mobile money, bank transfers and cards. The company saw rapid traction after joining Y Combinator in early 2020, with messaging transactions up 1,000% that year and ARR rising 400%. Revenue is reported to be growing about 60% month-on-month and 68% of messaging volume is tied to online financial transactions; Nigeria accounts for 76% of transactions while Algeria represents about 15%. Termii plans to use the new seed capital to expand across Africa, including a physical presence in Algeria, and to roll out additional messaging offerings. Termii was founded in 2014 by Gbolade Emmanuel (CEO) and Ayomide Awe (CTO) and rebranded in 2017. The company offers a Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) focused on delivering dependable communication channels for African businesses. Termii is now a Delaware company with operations in Silicon Valley while maintaining a primary market focus in Africa, particularly Nigeria. The founders spent three months in the Bay Area as part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2020 batch, with Demo Day delivered over video due to the COVID-19 outbreak. As part of YC, Termii received a $150,000 investment in exchange for 7% equity. The company has previously received funding from Future Hub (backed by Transsion) and Microtraction and intends to continue operating across multiple locations with a focus on Nigeria. Termii is a Nigerian communication and collaboration platform offering an API-based communication infrastructure that drives repeated interactions between customers and brands through multi-channel real-time messaging and a per-billing wallet system. The product focuses on customer retention by segmenting users and delivering personalized marketing messages and includes customer authentication and verification APIs. The company was started in 2014 as a team-networking platform by co-founders Gbolade Emmanuel and Ayomide Awe, rebranded and officially launched in October 2017. Termii is headquartered in Lagos and serves customers in Nigeria, Morocco, Ghana, and Benin Republic. The startup has grown from about 100 businesses at launch to roughly 1,000 clients, including hundreds of top brands such as Bankly and Fundall. It intends to use the $30,000 seed from Future Hub to optimise the platform across Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya and upgrade authentication and verification APIs; until now it has been sustained by founders' investments. Termii is a corporate networking and collaboration platform that integrates social and business tools to help businesses improve office collaboration and productivity. Its core product includes co-working remote workspaces, real-time Team Note document editing, staff grouping, task assigner, and a presentation board supporting video and slides. The platform offers an enterprise version with tailored features, and it has a community of more than 1,000 investors who can access venture stories and progress updates. Termii recently partnered with Newswire to connect ventures to over 100,000 journalists and more than 50 media outlets. The company has secured about $10,000 in funding (excluding investor-provided office space), is generating revenue from paying users, and has revised pricing to attract younger startups. CEO Gbolade Emmanuel says the company is developing beta services to improve revenue streams and plans continental expansion to markets including Tunisia, Morocco, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa.

Led · Seed · Oct 2021

ShipBlu operates a delivery and fulfillment service that leases warehouses to store merchants’ products, connects to merchants’ online stores via a dashboard, then picks, packs and ships orders. The company charges per package based on two standard sizes, destination and shipping speed, and is one of the few providers in Egypt to offer prioritized shipping speeds (including overnight). ShipBlu fully launched in August and, per its YC profile, signed more than 40 merchants in its first month; since then it says it has doubled its clientele and tripled revenues (no hard numbers provided). The founders—Ali Nasser, Ahmed ElKawass and Abdelrahman Hosny—launched the company in 2020 and have built AI/ML algorithms to reduce costs and refine delivery operations. Management aims to expand network coverage to reach 99% of Egypt’s population within months and to enable predictable delivery windows (eventually a three-hour window). ShipBlu competes with local providers such as Flextock and Bosta.

Participated · Series A · Jun 2021

GrocerApp operates a low-price online supermarket in Pakistan, offering groceries, vegetables, beauty & wellness, household care, baby care, pet care, meats & seafood with doorstep delivery. Founded in 2016 by Ahmad Saeed, Hassaan Sadiq, and Rai Bilal, the company emphasizes customer experience and seamless order fulfilment. The founders previously played key roles scaling PakWheels and have rapidly expanded GrocerApp from Lahore into Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Between its $1.0M seed round and this Series A, the company reported a 300% increase in orders and revenue, with total annualized revenue exceeding US$15 million. Management states unit economics are sustainable and plans include expanding to additional strategic Pakistani cities and launching new online grocery initiatives. GrocerApp highlights its operational infrastructure for receiving orders, beginning fulfilment, and completing delivery to support daily customer growth. GrocerApp, founded in Lahore in 2016 by Ahmed Saeed, Hassaan Sadiq, and Bilal Zafar, operates an online grocery platform allowing customers to order groceries, fruits, vegetables and meat through web and mobile apps for same-day delivery. The company runs a pure-play model with its own inventory, fulfillment centers and an operations model that now relies on a network of freelance drivers. GrocerApp offers about 4,000 SKUs in Lahore and 1,500 SKUs on its app in Islamabad and Rawalpindi following recent expansion. It has recently achieved multi-fold growth and is currently growing at 20–30% month-over-month. The startup plans to use new funding to make its supply chain more efficient, automate processes to scale, and fuel further expansion. Management is exploring expansion to Karachi next year.