Late last week, investors, entrepreneurs, and business executives from the Middle East and around the world got together in downtown Cairo to mark the fifth edition of the annual RiseUp Summit.
It was a three-day summit that covered three tracks in each zone: capital, creative, and tech.
As always, there were widely-anticipated keynote speeches, workshops, and networking like you would expect at any event focused on business and entrepreneurship. But the real crowd pleaser was a string of announcements on new partnerships, investment opportunities, and the creation of resources to help out regional entrepreneurs.
“We’re thrilled to see the Summit kick off with such incredible participation from all over the world. It’s a testament to the important role entrepreneurship plays in our region, which pushes us every year to create an experience filled with real opportunities for startups,” said Dalia Kamar, RiseUp Summit Manager, on day-1 of the event.
When it comes to investment, Egypt’s homegrown startup Elves hit the home run by closing a seed round of more than $2 million.
Elves is known for their self-titled app that connects users with personal assistants. Some of the more prominent names in the long list of investors included: The Dubai Angels, Emaar Industries and Investments, the Kauffman Fellows, as well as a number others from the GCC region and the United States.
The event also saw EdVentures, an education-focused Egyptian corporate venture capital firm, announcing a new partnership with regional publishers Nahdet Misr Group to raise an edu-tech exclusive investment fund. Although, neither of the companies revealed the size of the fund.
There was more in store for businesses linked to the education sector as US-based online edu-company Udacity announced a new collaboration with the American University of Cairo (AUC). The collaboration will kick off with an emphasis on mobile development, and data science before expanding into other areas.
Meanwhile, the Abraaj Group announced the launch of Bakery, which is counter-intuitively is not a startup focused on cupcakes and cookies. Rather, it is a growth market early stage investment and ecosystem building platform.
Among the participants were several US-based tech firms including Stripe, which announced an early access to its invite-only service Stripe Atlas for the attendees of RiseUp. Stripe Atlas is a platform dedicated to providing assistance to internet businesses.