Wuilt, an Egyptian startup that helps individuals and businesses to create their websites in Arabic in as little as 5 minutes has secured $535k in seed funding to enable it grow its business.
“We came across many friends and businesses struggle to get a professional website designed to their style and design especially in Arabic. This highly motivated us as a team to bridge this gap by providing a solution and hence Wuilt was created and launched,” Ahmed Rostom, the co-founder and CEO of Wuilt said.
“Today, Wuilt’s all-in-one Arabic platform offers a range of features to fit businesses of all sizes and across all industries. Wuilt takes the hassle out of web designing and saves you time. In minutes, your business can have a sleek, and professional website,” he added.
Here Is What You Need To Know
- The $535,000 seed funding came from UK-based MENA Technology Fund, Saudi’s Daal VC, some angel investors, and Flat6Labs Cairo (as follow-on funding — Wuilt was part of Flat6Labs Cairo’s 2019 cohort).
- The startup will use the funding to launch an ecommerce platform that will enable people to create their online stores (just like Shopify but in Arabic).
- It will also use the funding to expand its presence in Saudi Arabia. Currently, about 30 percent of Wuilt’s customers are from Saudi Arabia.
Wuilt Arabic Wuilt Arabic
Why The Investors Invested
According to Omar Hassan, the Managing Partner at MENA Technology Fund, the fund believed in the early traction Wuilt has achieved but are more excited about the functionality and product roadmap of the startup, “That will make Wuilt a success.”
“Flat6Labs has been a true believer in Wuilt since they first pitched their business, and we’ve been lucky to partner with them early-on. The promising traction to date, the huge market opportunity in the MENA region and the amazing team behind Wuilt, were true assurances for us to increase our exposure to Wuilt in their second round,” Marie-Therese Fam, Managing Partner of Flat6Labs Cairo, commenting on the investment, said.
“Enabling SMEs by providing them with state-of-the-art technology to create their business’ digital frontier is not an easy task. The market that Wuilt is serving is considered to be the future of most of our regional economies. With robust solutions and scalable technology, we believe Wuilt will become a great success story in the near future,” Abdulrahman Alqahtani, CEO of Daal VC, said.
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A Look At What The Startup Does
Launched in 2019 by founders Ahmed Rostom, Mohamed Hegazy, and Mahmoud Metwaly, Wuilt is a platform that enables those with little knowledge of building websites to create and manage their Arabic websites.
Currently, the startup claims to be serving over 30,000 free and paying users in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Although Wuilt’s main focus is on Arabic, the platform also supports building in English.
The startup said that it has witnessed a spike in the number of its users since the start of Covid-19, without disclosing further details.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer