Berlin-based corporate venture builder FoundersLane, which was recently acquired by Creative Dock Group (CDG), has expanded its operations to Egypt. This comes as part of the Group's commitment to invest up to €100 million in startups based in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena).

The new venture, named FoundersLane Egypt, is co-led by Egyptian entrepreneurs Mohamed Aboulnaga and Anas Rabah, both venture capitalists and former startup founders. Aboulnaga recently founded PiE, an acquisitions and mergers (M&A) advisory firm and is the co-founder of MNT-Halan, an Egypt-based fintech super app and one of the country's best-funded startups. Together, Rabah and Aboulnaga worked as a duo at Halan and UAE-based super app Careem and recently co-founded Klivvr, a fintech-focused venture capital firm.

“Many of the large corporations in the country are still yet to wake up to the benefits of digitisation. The corporate venture building concept pioneered by the likes of FoundersLane will shake up the traditional way of doing business while enabling startups to have the opportunity to work with corporate partners and have access to investors and mentorship. This will ultimately result in increased digitisation across most traditional sectors like FMCG," Rabah told Wamda.

Besides Egypt, FoundersLane also has an office up and running in Saudi Arabia. The company has provided services to many clients across Mena including in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. It counts Saudi public transport and logistics company Saudi Arabia Transport Company (SAPTCO) as one of its corporate clients. 

Egypt is the third-largest ecosystem in Mena. In the first half of this year, Egyptian startups managed to raise $317 million, a 156 per cent increase year on year.