Some 10 days before the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in 2011, a small startup accelerator was born with grand ambitions to serve the region’s entrepreneurs.
Those ambitions had to be put on hold for six months with the ensuing political turmoil in the country. But now, in less than three years, Cairo’s Flat6Labs has established a platform, and most notably a brand, across the Middle East among entrepreneurs.
The accelerator has invested and mentored 57 startups, and has expanded to Jeddah. On Tuesday evening in Cairo at an investor demo day for its latest 10 startups, Flat6Labs announced a partnership with Abu Dhabi’s media zone TwoFour54 to create another chapter in the United Arab Emirates.
The new accelerator will offer between $30,000 and $50,000, slightly higher than Cairo and Jeddah, for up to 15% of a startup’s business, according to Ramez Mohamed, chief executive of Flat6Labs.
“We are targeting the local Emiratis as well, but it’s an international accelerator,” Mr. Mohamed said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Flat6Labs offers up to $20,000 in Cairo and $25,000 in Jeddah.
Founded in Cairo by VC firm Sawari Ventures, Flat6Labs has partnered in Jeddah with Qotuf, an entrepreneurship network, with sponsorship from Swedish furniture behemoth Ikea and industrial giant Arabian Cement. In Abu Dhabi, Flat6Labs will also aim to raise money through partners, Mr. Mohamed said.
Flat6Labs has not invested in the Arab world’s Google Inc. or Facebook Inc. It’s not even bought into a success story as large as Yahoo Inc.’s buyout of Maktoob. It’s still early days for accelerators in the Middle East, and the tech scene for that matter.
But in the first six cycles of Flat6Labs Cairo, the accelerator deployed around $1 million, and it claims about 50% of the startups have raised follow-on funding to the tune of about $2 million collectively.
There have been startups that have gained attention worldwide. Instabug, software for app developers that makes tracking bugs easy, won the MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Business Plan Competition last year. Nafham is an Arabic-educational platform that’s available in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria has created more than 16,000 online videos for children. Meanwhile, Integreight raised $85,000 on Kickstarter.com last year, hitting their target of $10,000 in just six hours for their 1Sheeld product.
In the U.A.E., Flat6Labs plans to launch more than 80 companies in four years, focusing on digital content, e-commerce and mobile apps, and hopes to have its first class started before the end of the year. So the region’s next big thing might just come from Abu Dhabi.
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