EGYPT – Egyptian marketing startup DigiFi has raised pre-seed funding from the US-based Loyal VC to help it scale up operations in the North African country.

Founded in 2019 by Ahmed Nassef and Mohamed Maher, DigiFi allows customers to share their basic profile data with a business owner in exchange for free Wi-Fi at their establishment.

Business owners can then use this demographic data to promote their services to the customer.

DiFi also allows third party advertisers to promote push-based advertising to the same customers, with the business owner taking a share of the advertising spend.

A graduate of the Founder Institute programme in Egypt, which has been instrumental in facilitating the funding from Loyal VC, DigiFi has over 50 venues in its portfolio and more than 500,000 monthly ad views.

The startup’s vision is to become the biggest data hub for enhancing retargeting campaigns for digital advertisers.

It plans to use the funding to scale its platform by building on its UI, adding reporting capabilities, growing its operational capacity, and expanding its growing market reach.

“I’m so proud to be the first Egyptian startup of Loyal VC’s portfolio. Their continued support and mentorship with their class A mentors will add a lot of value to our company,” said Nassef.

DigiFi joins a growing list of Egyptian tech startups raising pre-seed funding for scale up operations.

Earlier this month, Ordera an online food delivery startup raised a six-figure seed funding to scale up its Egyptian operations.

Last month, two other Egyptian startups, Thndr and Makwa reported successful fundraising runs, securing necessary funds for expansion and capacity building.

The mushrooming of startups in Egypt and their success in securing funds for upscaling has been attributed to a number of factors including a favourable operating environment and presence of a young, increasingly urbanised and tech-minded population.

Around 250,000 engineering and tech graduates enter the job market every year providing the necessary human resource required to stimulate startup development.

The costs of establishing and registering a business in cities like Cairo are low – averaging $1500, a factor that is encouraging creation of startups.

In addition, the government offers modern infrastructure and a range of tax incentives in a growing number of tech parks, as it attempts to nurture the country’s budding start-up ecosystem.

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