Seed

Pre-Seed

Others

Series A

Doha

Sara Daniel

Mohammad Al-Saad

Marwan Marouf Rafiq Mahmoud

Shaikha Al-Jabir

If you're ready to take your business to the next level with Doha Tech Angels, we want to hear your pitch.

Investment in Startup

Doha Tech Angels: A leader in funding technology. View investment focus, portfolio details, and trends at Lucidity Insights.

Doha Tech Angels

Doha Tech Angels is a company with an experienced team of investors and executives to provide funding, mentorship, and guidance to support the growth and development of startups.

Dubai

Pre-Series A

YallaHub

E-Commerce

Grocery

Retail

YallaHub is MENA’s first B2B2C e-commerce aggregator, integrating all market parties into a single, scalable tech platform. With a monthly membership subscription, it provides an extensive array of products designed to dismantle any scalability hurdles facing e-commerce businesses.

Nexford University

Education

Praava Health

Health Care

Wellness

Play2Pay

Fintech

At-Home-Doc

Healthcare

At-Home-Doc offers primary health care services to people without the need to leave their premises.

oladoc.com

Fitness

Stemly

AI/IoT

SaaS

Machine Learning

Wellbees

Kuwait

Sihaty

IT & Communication

Healthtech

Hospitals and Health Care

mHealth

Personal Health

Sihaty is an integrated virtual health system.

Sihaty is rethinking the way healthcare is done.

Sihaty brings together the best technology with the best human resources for health under its unique digital umbrella.

Sihaty's secure advanced telehealth platform connects you to an ecosystem of carefully selected, trusted, quality providers focused on your well-being.

Sihaty services include primary, urgent, and preventive care, chronic disease management, mental health, and women's and men's health.

Sihaty offers the following advantages to you and to your family:

1. Our on-demand service allows you to see a family physician immediately for most minor emergencies including:
            +	Cough and cold
            +	Fever
            +	Anxiety
            +	Skin problems
            +	Prescription renewals
            +	Lab test reviews

2. Our appointment-based service lets you schedule consultations with and receive evidence-based guidance from experts in medicine, surgery, mental health, nutrition, and rehabilitation.

3. Our convenient delivery service brings medications and laboratory tests to your home.

4. Our technology allows your medical records to remain safe and in your hands.

5. Our integrations allow for remote patient monitoring with the most innovative medical devices for better early detection and chronic disease management.

So why go through the hassle and risk of driving in traffic or waiting in busy waiting rooms when most health services can safely be managed through online consultations?

At Sihaty, we believe in a safe, convenient, and holistic approach to your health. So, come along and join our healthcare revolution.

ShopUp

Logistics

Muscat

Carzaty

Automotive

Carzaty is an online platform to search, compare, buy and finance new and assured used cars

Tuhoon

Mobile Apps

<ul>
	<li>UAE-based VC firm Mindshift Capital has taken part in US employee wellness platform Wellbees&rsquo; latest $2.2 million Seed funding round, alongside other VCs including 212, Assist Ventures, Sarus Select Capital and Doha Tech Angels.</li>
	<li>Founded in 2013 by Melis Abacıoğlu, Wellbees is a one-stop-shop tech solution for HR professionals and employees, allowing employees to gain better habits that can impact their lives.</li>
	<li>Mindshift Capital is a female-led and focused VC fund that invests in early-stage tech companies on a global scale.</li>
	<li>This raise will allow Wellbees to establish a data science team to strengthen the company&rsquo;s analytics, as well as increase its market share, especially in the UK and MENA markets.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
</ul>

Press release:

Global gender-lens venture capital fund Mindshift Capital today announces it has invested in Wellbees, a SaaS employee wellness platform selling to businesses, as part of its $2.2 million seed funding round. Mindshift Capital is investing in the company alongside 212, Assist Ventures, Sarus Select Capital and Doha Tech Angels.

Mindshift Capital is the first female-led and focused VC fund to back Wellbees as the company scales into the Middle East.&nbsp; Mindshift Capital will be joining the Board as an Observer.&nbsp; This raise will allow Wellbees to establish a data science team to strengthen the company&rsquo;s analytics and ability to measure the impact of wellness on an employee&rsquo;s effectiveness.&nbsp; It will also be used to increase Wellbees&rsquo; market share, especially in the U.K. and MENA markets.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Founded by Melis Abacıoğlu, Wellbees is a one-stop-shop tech solution for human resources (HR) professionals and employees alike, allowing employees to gain better habits and therefore contribute to their better lives. The platform covers all eight aspects of well-being: mental, physical, spiritual, social, environmental, occupational, intellectual and financial.&nbsp;

&ldquo;We are excited to be backing Melis, who is a force of nature, and the team that she has assembled. She has already proven the concept with more than 40 clients in 17 countries,&rdquo; said Heather Henyon, Founding Partner of Mindshift Capital. &ldquo;We are strong believers in wellness across all segments of society, especially following the pandemic and the havoc it has wreaked on mental health.&nbsp; We see the potential for employers in the Middle East to further support their people, their greatest asset.&rdquo;

&ldquo;We are thrilled that Mindshift Capital is joining this round!&rdquo; said Wellbees CEO and cofounder Melis Abacıoğlu. &ldquo;Their expertise and commitment to wellness, as demonstrated by their investment thesis and portfolio companies, will be additive to our success in MENA.&nbsp; We are doubling down on data and expansion with this round and are holding our first LOOP Summit targeting HR professionals in the region in Dubai on October 20th.&rdquo;

Mindshift Capital participates in Wellbees’ $2.2 million Seed round

Oladoc, a Pakistani platform for booking doctors&#39; appointments and healthcare teleconsultation, has raised $1.8 million in a Pre-Series A round, the company said on Friday.

The round was led by Sarmayacar Ventures along with participation from Doha Tech Angels and other angel investors, Oaldoc said in a statement, adding that while the round was closed in 2021, the official confirmation of it securing the funding was made today (Friday).

The statement quoted Sarmayacar founder and Chief Executive Officer Rabeel Warraich as saying: &quot;We are excited to partner with Oladoc on their journey to provide quality healthcare to everyone in Pakistan. Oladoc&rsquo;s team has demonstrated strong on the ground execution, helping establish Oladoc as the number one doctor-booking platform in Pakistan.&quot;

&quot;We look forward to working with the founders to accelerate Oladoc&rsquo;s growth and unlock the full market potential,&quot; he added.

According to the statement, Oladoc, which was founded by Abid Zuberi and Atif Zuberi, has a network of 8,000 doctors spread across 10 cities in Pakistan.

&quot;The platform puts the power in the hands of patients (versus doctors), by giving them the ability to search, book, rate and review healthcare providers. In addition, the platform also provides its users the ability to order lab tests [and] save their medical history in the application,&quot; the statement read.

It added that Oladoc had served more than 15m users in the last three years and currently had more than 300,000 verified patient reviews online.

&quot;Oladoc is on a mission to empower patients by making healthcare accessible, transparent and affordable for the masses,&quot; the statement quoted Abid as saying.

The platform&#39;s founder said the company had seen &quot;phenomenal growth&quot; in the past 12 months and &quot;with a fresh funding round, [it] aims to evolve into a digital health mall that serves patients&rsquo; needs across the complete lifecycle.&quot;

Oladoc planned to scale its current value proposition along with bringing in seasoned C-level leadership, which comprises executive-level managers, to help scale the organisation faster, he added.

Pakistan's doctor-booking platform Oladoc raises $1.8m in Pre-Series A funding

Kuwait-based healthtech Sihaty has received $1.3 million in a pre-Series A round from Rasameel Investments, The Taken Seat Fund, Doha Tech Angels, alongside a number of leading regional angel programs, it told&nbsp;MENAbytes&nbsp;today.&nbsp;

<a href="https://sihaty.com/" target="_blank">Sihaty</a>&nbsp;was founded The Taken Seat, a regional venture builder, in 2019. The platform enables users in Kuwait and Saudi to consult doctors online. The doctors can use Sihaty&rsquo;s products to speak to patients, save their medical records and history, and prescribe medicines, which are delivered to patients in 24 hours. The mobile app of the Kuwaiti startup has received over 200,000 downloads since its launch in 2020.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The startup also aims to fill the gap in quality primary care services and care coordination critical to good health.

&ldquo;For too long, our nations have focused on a sick care model. This is expensive, fragmented, low-yield, and it completely ignores the healthy majority. As a result, we have not paid enough attention to primary care and prevention, the priority interventions for health systems,&rdquo; said Dr. Nadeem Alduaij, co-founder and CEO of Sihaty in a statement. He added, &ldquo;Despite our obsession with building bigger and better hospitals, our region holds the alarming record of having the fastest growing chronic disease mortality rate in the world. A paradigm shift is long overdue and we already know what the solutions are. Technology has the power to scale and enhance their impact.&rdquo;

With the help of the latest funds, Sihaty will be introducing the feature of having an assigned family doctor for all its users to help families manage chronic conditions effortlessly.&nbsp;Sihaty will also create a service for mental health conditions, particularly because mental health issues continue to be stigmatized and undermined in the region. Aside from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the team hopes to expand this platform across the Gulf region.

Marwan Mahmoud, co-founder at DTA, said, &ldquo;Doha Tech Angels is excited to be part of Sihaty as an investor. We see great potential in Sihaty and in the vision of the founders. As an angel investment group from Qatar, we look for meaningful investment opportunities in health tech that address important regional challenges.&rdquo;

Dakhil Al Dakhil, EVP for Alternative Investments at Rasameel Investments, said, &ldquo;The Taken Seat founders are making a reputation for themselves as serial entrepreneurs. They manage to leverage their expertise and put together a world-class team capable of exceeding expectations in their go-to-market strategy. And that is precisely what we are experiencing them doing with Sihaty.&rdquo;

With the COVID-19 health crisis, people have been taking more measures than ever to ensure that they are in good health. Digital healthcare platforms like Sihaty make access to healthcare easier than ever, enabling people to maintain and improve their current health.

They offer much more flexibility and comfort compared to the hassle of having to find a good doctor and spend hours in the waiting room anticipating an appointment. Such platforms are particularly beneficial for those with chronic conditions who are in need of regular check-ups, medication, and tests.

Kuwait’s Sihaty raises $1.3 million to expand its online healthcare platform

A Fort Lauderdale-based ad-tech startup announced it has closed a $7.5 million seed funding round.

<a href="https://adfone.com/" target="_blank">Adfone</a>, a gamified mobile savings and rewards technology provider, will use the funding to further develop its Play2Pay rewards solution and grow globally. Doha Tech Angels, HaleStreet Investment and Trog Hawley Capital were the funders, according to Crunchbase.

Adfone provides a rewards platform that converts user engagement into mobile phone bill payment, said founder Brian Boroff.

&ldquo;We have a passionate and diverse group of investors that recognize Adfone&rsquo;s value and the future it will usher in for consumers, advertisers and wireless carriers alike,&rdquo; says&nbsp;Boroff, who is CEO of&nbsp;Adfone, in a statement. &ldquo;As the global pandemic reshapes the way in which consumers engage with their mobile devices,&nbsp;Adfone&nbsp;reduces their financial costs while expanding the availability of data plan use.&rdquo;

The Play2Pay platform allows mobile phone users around the world to reduce their phone bills by playing games, watching videos and completing special offers and surveys on their devices that are paid for by brands. The platform converts user engagement into mobile phone bill payment. Additionally, wireless carriers can participate in the system advertising network, and advertisers can deliver targeted messaging to identifiable demographics.

&ldquo;Investing in&nbsp;Adfone&nbsp;is an investment in the future of mobile communications,&rdquo; said&nbsp;John Cooper,&nbsp; an investor and board member of&nbsp;Adfone&nbsp;and former Co-Head&nbsp;of the TMT team at Houlihan Lokey. &ldquo;Adfone&nbsp;will kickoff its first institutional round of funding this fall and has already begun initial conversations with qualified&nbsp;investors.&rdquo;

Adfone, founded in 2015, also has operations in&nbsp;the &nbsp;United Kingdom,&nbsp;Mexico&nbsp;and&nbsp;Singapore, the company said.

Funding news: Adfone of Fort Lauderdale raises $7.5 million seed round

Before launching&nbsp;<a href="https://praavahealth.com/" target="_blank">Praava Health</a>, a company that combines telemedicine with physical clinics, Sylvana Sinha had a successful career in international law, including serving as a foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama&rsquo;s 2008 presidential campaign and working for the World Bank in Afghanistan. While visiting Bangladesh in 2011 for a family wedding, however, Sinha had a &ldquo;lightbulb moment&rdquo; after her mother nearly died after an operation at a top private hospital.

&ldquo;When I had this experience with my mom, I observed that there was really no amount of money that could afford you access to quality healthcare in Bangladesh,&rdquo; she told TechCrunch.

&ldquo;It really struck me that despite all the progress the country had made, and the fact that there is now a middle class of 40 million people, that there are still not really great options for excellent healthcare,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;You have thousands of people traveling abroad every day and billions of dollars a year going outside the country to access better healthcare.&rdquo;

Born and raised in the United States, Sinha moved to Bangladesh in 2015 to start working on Praava. Today the company is announcing a Series A Prime round that brings its total raised to $10.6 million. Praava claims to have tripled its growth every year since launching services in 2018, and now serves 150,000 patients. In 2020, it also processed 75,000 COVID-19 tests in-house.

Praava&rsquo;s backers include a list of prominent angel investors: retired United States Army General David H. Petraeus, chairman of the KKR Global Institute and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who also invested in Praava&rsquo;s seed round; Wellville executive founder Esther Dyson; SBK Tech Ventures; Dr. Jeremy Lim, advisor of digital health to Singapore&rsquo;s Agency for Science, Technology and Research; Dr. Rushika Fernandopoulle, co-founder and CEO of Iora Health; and Geoff Price, co-founder and chief operating officer of Oak Street Health.

The company has a flagship medical center in the Dhaka, Bangladesh&rsquo;s capital, and a network of 40 smaller clinics throughout the city. Praava plans to open more clinics in Dhaka, before expanding into Chittagong, the country&rsquo;s second-largest city.

Its &ldquo;brick-and-click&rdquo; model, including online consultations, also allows it to reach patients throughout the country. Virtual healthcare accounts for about 40% of Praava&rsquo;s services including telemedicine and an online pharmacy.

Bangladesh is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, but there is a critical shortage of healthcare workers for its 170 million people. The World Health Organization estimates that there are only about 3 physicians and 1 nurse for every 10,000 people, and most work in urban hospitals, even though 70% of Bangladesh&rsquo;s population is in rural areas. This means people often travel long distances for consultations that may last less than a minute.

&ldquo;One of the things that we see telemedicine really help with is patients outside of Dhaka to figure out if they even need to make that trip,&rdquo; said Sinha.

The company found that in over 80% of cases, especially primary care, its providers are able to address patient needs online. In the remaining 20% of cases, they will ask them to come into one of Praava&rsquo;s clinics, which provide a wide range of outpatient services, imaging and lab diagnostics and a pharmacy.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, about 90% of Praava&rsquo;s consultations were happening virtually, though clinic visits have picked up again. Most of Praava&rsquo;s doctors are salaried full-time employees and one of its goals is to create deeper provider-patient relationships, with appointments typically lasting about 15 minutes.

&ldquo;I think technology is the future of health, there&rsquo;s absolutely no doubt about that,&rdquo; Sinha said. &ldquo;But when it come to seeing a doctor and the kind of healthcare needs that we all have over the course of our lifetime, technology is not going to be able to replace that entirely.&rdquo;

Most of Praava&rsquo;s patients currently pay per visit, and its pricing is at market rate, between Bangladesh&rsquo;s public healthcare system and more expensive private hospitals. It has also introduced membership plans with a flat rate for unlimited access to services.

Sinha said this is a very new type of model in Bangladesh, where only 1% of people have health insurance, primarily to cover hospitalizations.

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s our experiment of introducing value-based care to the region, so we&rsquo;re very excited about the product, but it&rsquo;s a new product and we expect it to pick up more in the coming years,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s already picked up a lot in the last year, because I think people are more health conscious and corporations are more willing to invest in employees&rsquo; health.&rdquo;

With its new funding, Praava will focus on building a &ldquo;super app&rdquo; for patients, to consolidate all of its digital services into one mobile app. It also plans to open 10 more healthcare centers in Dhaka, before expanding into Chittagong. Praava&rsquo;s &ldquo;brick-and-click&rdquo; model can scale into other emerging markets, but it plans to concentrate on Bangladesh for the next few years.

&ldquo;There are 170 million people to take care of first,&rdquo; Sinha said. &ldquo;So we&rsquo;re really focused on this market on this market for now.&rdquo;

Praava Health raises $10.6M to increase access to quality healthcare in Bangladesh

STEMLY, a platform which helps to optimise solutions for supply chain and finance industries, has raised US$2.5 million in seed funding to chart growth.

Investors in the round include the bank&#39;s venture arm ING Ventures, venture capital fund Elev8 as well as EDB New Ventures, the corporate venture building arm of EDB.

Stemly, the first initiative to be spun out of ING Singapore&#39;s startup incubator, has developed a platform to automate the forecasting as well as optimisation of a company&#39;s supply chain and finance processes.

This addresses the gap in planning for demand in manufacturing and retail, since it may take three weeks or more for companies to respond to market changes in consumer behaviour, said Stemly. This lag time typically results in overstocking and loss of sales.

Businesses are often challenged by the uncertainty in supply chains, where demand and supply fluctuations have been amplified by the pandemic, said Sanjay Saini, the co-founder and co-chief executive of Stemly.

He added that Stemly can allow managers to make &quot;better and faster decisions&quot; in demand forecasting, inventory optimisation and cash flow management. This would in turn hopefully &quot;reduce operating costs and improve operational efficiency&quot;.

Singapore's ING Labs spin-out Stemly raises US$2.5m in seed funding

The company is a digital credit platform facilitating working capital to small-business owners and home-based entrepreneurs in Bangladesh

November 12, 2018 &mdash;&nbsp;<a href="https://shopup.com.bd/">ShopUp</a>, the FinTech platform designed to automate the online sales and credit assessment process for small-business owners in Bangladesh via Facebook and other social platforms, announced it raised USD $1.62 million (SGD 2.23 million) seed round led by Omidyar Network, the impact investment firm established by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. Other funders in this round include angel investors from Facebook, Google, Amazon, Grab, and leading global banks.

ShopUp helps individuals build and grow their online business, gain access to credit, increase earnings, and become financially healthy and secure. The funding, which also includes a grant from UK AID, will be used to enhance the core technology infrastructure of ShopUp&rsquo;s credit algorithm, accelerate acquisition to 100,000 merchants, and establish partnerships with e-commerce players, logistics companies, and offline aggregators.

&ldquo;Many entrepreneurs in Bangladesh still lack access to formal credit services, making it hard to grow and scale their small businesses,&rdquo; said Afeef Zaman, the CEO, and cofounder of ShopUp. &ldquo;There is a long tail of micro- and nano-enterprises with annual turnover of less than $20,000 who generally don&rsquo;t have access to affordable credit due to high operating cost of micro-loans. Our unique model allows us to reach, engage and assess these MSMEs at a fraction of the cost using deep analytics and algorithm-driven models.&rdquo;

More than 60 percent of Bangladeshis are self-employed, and there are over 90 million internet subscribers in the country. Additionally, there are 350,000 shops on Facebook and nearly 300 e-commerce portals.

ShopUp currently has 28,000 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) on&nbsp;its platform, the majority of which are led by female entrepreneurs like Rapunzel&rsquo;s Secret Hair Oil. In Bangladesh, female employment has seen a 35-percent increase, reaching 18.1 million from 2008 to 2017.

&ldquo;Access to flexible, affordable credit is the key to unlock growth in the MSME sector in emerging markets, and ShopUp&rsquo;s mobile-friendly platform is helping to drive economic development, innovation, and employment in Bangladesh,&rdquo; said Smita Aggarwal, Investments director at Omidyar Network. &ldquo;It is heartening to see that ShopUp supports women entrepreneurs with tools to build their business and a stronger financial position.&rdquo;

Value Proposition 
According&nbsp;to the World Bank, the total MSME credit gap stands at USD $2.6 trillion worldwide, due to the high operating cost (18 cents per dollar lent). The majority of this gap exists in developing and underdeveloped countries such as Bangladesh, where the majority of the 10 million MSMEs remains outside the formal credit system. However, in the last decade, a massive global shift is taking place, as many MSMEs are turning to online financial services and connecting to digital ecosystems. Right now there are 350,000 MSMEs on Facebook in Bangladesh&mdash;growing at a 70 percent rate yearly. This creates a massive potential for algorithm-driven credit models like ShopUp, without high operating costs.

How It Works 
Merchants can register via ShopUp&rsquo;s mobile app or through the website to gain access to a range of shop management tools, including order management, catalogue management, preferred rates for online ads, digital payments, and shipping solutions. ShopUp works closely with Facebook and also partnered with BRAC, one of the largest microfinance institutions globally providing working capital loans. BRAC operates in 11 countries across Asia and Africa. In 2017, BRAC has disbursed $3.6 billion in micro-loans to 5.6 million borrowers in Bangladesh. Merchants registered with ShopUp are eligible to apply for a collateral-free loan via ShopUp&rsquo;s mobile app.

ShopUp Raises $1.62 Million Seed Round Led by Omidyar Network

Two profound problems face the higher education sector globally &mdash; affordability and relevance.&nbsp;Whether you live in Africa, Europe or the U.S., a major reason why people don&rsquo;t go to university or college or even drop out is because they cannot afford tuition fees.&nbsp;On the other hand, relevance shows the huge gap between what traditional universities teach and what global employers actually look for. It&rsquo;s not a secret that universities focus a bit too much on theory.

Over the past few years, there has been the emergence of&nbsp;a number of&nbsp;alternative credential providers trying to provide students with the necessary skills to earn and make a living.&nbsp;Nexford University is one such platform, and today, it has closed a $10.8 million pre-Series A funding round.

Dubai-based VC Global Ventures led the new round.&nbsp;Other investors include Future Africa&rsquo;s new thematic fund (focused on education), angel investors and family offices.&nbsp;Unnamed VCs from 10 countries, including the U.S., U.K., France, Dubai, Switzerland, Qatar, Nigeria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, also took part.

To date, Nexford has raised $15.3 million, following the first tranche of $4.5 million in seed funding raised two years ago.

<a href="https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ftarzi" target="_blank">Fadl Al Tarzi</a>&nbsp;launched&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nexford.org/" target="_blank">Nexford University</a>&nbsp;in 2019. The tech-enabled university is filling affordability and relevance gaps by providing access to quality and affordable education.

&ldquo;That way, you get the best of both worlds,&rdquo; CEO Al Tarzi said to TechCrunch.&nbsp;&ldquo;You get practical skills that you can put to work immediately or for your future career while&nbsp;actively&nbsp;keeping a job. So the whole experience&nbsp;is designed&nbsp;as a learning as a service model.&rdquo;

Nexford Unversity lets students study at their own pace.&nbsp;Once they apply and get admitted into either a degree program or a course program, they choose how fast or slow they want the program to be.

<img alt="Nexford University" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Copy-of-Headshot_Fadl.jpg?w=680" style="height:646px; width:680px" />

Fadl Al Tarzi (CEO, Nexford University).&nbsp;Image Credits:&nbsp;Nexford University

The CEO says whatever students learn on the platform is&nbsp;directly&nbsp;applicable to their jobs. Currently, Nexford offers undergraduate degrees in business administration; 360&deg;&nbsp;marketing; AI and automation; building a tech startup; business analytics; business in emerging markets; digital transformation; e-commerce; and product management. Its graduate degrees are business administration, advanced AI, e-commerce, hyperconnectivity, sustainability and world business.

Nexford&rsquo;s tuition structure is very different from traditional universities because it&rsquo;s modeled monthly. Its accredited degrees cost between $3,000 to $4,000 paid in monthly installments. In Nigeria, for instance, an MBA costs about $160 a month, while a bachelor degree costs $80 a month. But the catch for the monthly installment structure means the faster a learner graduates, the less they pay.

<h2>What&rsquo;s it like learning with Nexford University?</h2>

Nexford University doesn&rsquo;t offer standardized and theoretical tests or assignments as most traditional universities do. Al Tarzi says the company employs what he calls a competency-based education model where students prove mastery by working on practical projects.

For instance, a student working on an accounting course will most likely need to create a P&amp;L statement, analyze balance sheets and identify where the error is to correct it.&nbsp;The platform then gives the student different scenarios showing companies with different revenues and expense levels. The task?&nbsp;To analyse and extract certain ratios to help make sense of which company is profitable and the other unit economics involved.

Though Nexford plays in the edtech space, Al Tarzi doesn&rsquo;t think the company is an edtech company. As a licensed and accredited online university, Nexford has a huge amount of automation across the organization and provides students with support from faculty and career advisors.

After offering degrees, Nexford puts on its placement hats by fixing its graduates with partner employers.

There&rsquo;s a big shortage of jobs in Nigeria, and despite the high unemployment, it&rsquo;s actually difficult to find&nbsp;extremely&nbsp;qualified entry-level graduates. So Nexford has carried out&nbsp;several&nbsp;partnerships where employers sponsor their employees or soon-to-be employees for upskilling and rescaling purposes.

An illustration is with Sterling Bank, a local bank in the country. Most Nigerian banks&nbsp;have yearly routines where they hire graduates and put them on weeks-long training programs. Sterling Bank employs any candidate it feels did great after&nbsp;the capital intensive (eight weeks in most cases) programs.

So what Nexford has done is to partner with Sterling to fund the tuition for high school leavers.&nbsp;When these students go through Nexford&rsquo;s programs for the first year, they begin to get part-time placements at Sterling. Upon graduation, they get a job in the bank.

&ldquo;That saves Sterling the training cost and our tuition fee is almost equal to the training that they provided for students. Also, students start paying back once they get placed, so it&rsquo;s a win-win.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

<img alt="" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screenshot-151.png" style="height:576px; width:1349px" />

Image Credits:&nbsp;Nexford University

Nexford University has learners from 70 countries, with Nigeria its biggest market yet. Nexford also has blue-chip partnerships with Microsoft, LinkedIn Learning and IBM&nbsp;to provide access to tools, courses and programmes to improve the learning experience.

One of the major gains of this learning experience is how it prepares people for remote jobs.&nbsp;Nexford is bullish on its virtual skills grid, where people will get jobs&nbsp;remotely&nbsp;regardless of their location on the platform.

&ldquo;Across Sub-Saharan Africa by the year 2026, there&rsquo;s gonna be a shortage of about 100 million university seats as a result of huge growth in youth population not met by growth and supply. Even if you want to build universities fast, you wouldn&rsquo;t be able to meet the demand. And that spirals down to the job market.&nbsp;We don&rsquo;t think&nbsp;the local economy will produce enough jobs in Nigeria, for instance. But we want to enable people to get remote jobs across the world and not&nbsp;necessarily&nbsp;have to migrate.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Last year, Nexford&rsquo;s revenues grew by 300%. This year, the company hopes to triple the size of its enrollment from last year, the CEO said.

Nexford is big on designing students&rsquo; curriculum based on analysis of what their employer needs. Al Tarzi tells me that the company always follows the Big Data approach, asking themselves, &ldquo;How do we find out what employers worldwide are looking for and keep our curriculum alive and relevant?&rdquo;

&ldquo;We develop proprietary technology that enables us to analyze job vacancies as well as&nbsp;several&nbsp;other data sources; use AI to understand how &hellip; data sets and build a curriculum based on those findings. So, in short, we start with the end in mind,&rdquo; he answers.

The company is keen on improving its technology regardless. It wants to analyse skills more accurately and automate more functions to enhance user experience. That&rsquo;s what the funding will be used for in addition to fuelling its regional expansion plans (particularly in Asia) and investing in growth and product development. Per the latter,&nbsp;the online university says it will be launching partner programs with more employers globally to&nbsp;facilitate&nbsp;both placement and upskilling and rescaling.&nbsp;

Merging both worlds of tech and the traditional university model is no easy feat. The former is about efficiency, user-centricity and product, among others. The latter embodies rigidity and continues to lag behind fast-paced innovation. While there&rsquo;s been a boom in edtech, most startups try to circumvent the industry&rsquo;s bureaucracy by launching an app or a MOOC. Nexford&rsquo;s model of running a degree-granting, licensed, accredited and regulated university is more challenging but in it lies so much opportunity.

Iyin Aboyeji, Future Africa general partner CEO, understands this. It&rsquo;s one reason why the company is the first investment out of Future Africa&rsquo;s soon-to-be-launched fund focused on the future of learning and why he believes the company is a game-changer for higher education in Africa.

&ldquo;During the pandemic, while many universities in Nigeria&nbsp;were shut&nbsp;down due to labour disputes, Nexford was already delivering an innovative and affordable new model of online higher education designed for a skills-based economy.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;

For general partner at Global Ventures Noor Sweid, Nexford University is redressing the mismatch between the supply of talent and the demands of today&rsquo;s digital economy.&nbsp;&ldquo;We&nbsp;are thrilled&nbsp;to partner with Fadl and the Nexford team on their journey toward expanding access to universal quality higher education in emerging markets,&rdquo; she said.

Nexford University lands $10.8M pre-Series A to scale its flexible remote learning platform

<ul>
	<li>UAE-based quick-commerce startup YallaMarket has raised $2.2 million in a bridge round from Doha Tech Angels, Flyer One Ventures and AngelsDeck, after a $2.3 million pre-Seed round led by Wamda and Dubai Angel Investors in November 2021.</li>
	<li>Founded in 2021 by Leo Dovbenko and Stas Seleznev, YallaMarket delivers groceries and other goods of daily demand to customers for free in 15 minutes through dark stores across Dubai, UAE.</li>
	<li>The funding will be used to expand the presence of the company in the UAE by opening new dark stores in Dubai and other GCC countries.</li>
</ul>

Press release:

Dubai-based 15-min grocery delivery service YallaMarket raises $2.2 million in bridge round with the participation of Doha Tech Angels, Flyer One Ventures and AngelsDeck.

The bridge round is coming after the closing of the first $2.3 million pre-Seed round by Wamda and Dubai Angel Investors in November 2021. With the new funding, YallaMarket financing has passed the $5 million mark in less than three months.

The funding will be used to expand the presence of the company in the UAE by opening new dark stores in Dubai prior to the next financing round, which is scheduled for March 2022.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Since the first funding round YallaMarket has increased revenue and the number of daily orders fourfold &mdash; on average the YallaMarket client makes 1.5 orders per week. The startup also reached 2.5x growth in app installs compared to November.

The delivery area was expanded by new dark stores in Dubai Marina and DSO areas.

&ldquo;The developments of the last two months proved that entering the UAE market was the right thing to do. Daily orders growth validates that MENA consumers need instant grocery delivery to save their time. The interest from the established international companies also confirms that the region&#39;s q-commerce market will be driven by the grocery segment&rdquo;, says Leo Dovbenko, YallaMarket СEO and Co-Founder.

According to the recent Redseer research, the Mena Q-commerce market is expected to grow by 24 per cent to reach $20 billion by 2024. The region is a global leader in quick commerce, contributing 20 per cent to Mena&rsquo;s digital economy.

The food delivery share, which accounted for 83% in 2021, is going to drop to 55% by 2030, while groceries are expected to have a market share of 14 per cent, 21 per cent and 31 per cent in 2021, 2024 and 2030 respectively (starting from a tiny 2 per cent in 2018), Redseer said.

&ldquo;The UAE is actively implementing technology in all areas of life, so this is a promising market for projects that AngelsDeck is focused on. Already now we can say that MENA has the potential to become one of the leaders of the grocery delivery in the 10-15 minutes segment. Therefore, we are very pleased to become a partner of YallaMarket, which is the first hyper-local delivery service in the UAE, and we believe that the project has a great future&rdquo; comments Igor Kaloshin, CEO of AngelsDeck.

By the end of the year, YallaMarket plans to launch 100 new stores across the UAE and to enter Qatar.

YallaMarket raises $2.2 million bridge round

Dubai-based 15-min grocery delivery service YallaMarket raises $2.2 million in bridge round with the participation of Doha Tech Angels, Flyer One Ventures and AngelsDeck.

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