Egypt-based Almentor, the leading online video learning platform in Arabic, has secured $10 million in pre-series C growth financing led by e& capital, einnovation &’s investment arm. The funds will be utilised to help almentor reach its aim of servicing ten million learners in the MENA area. The money will be used primarily to raise investment in the B2C segment and to expand in Saudi Arabia. Existing investors include Partech, Sawari Ventures, Egypt Ventures, Sango Capital, and Endure Capital.
almentor aims to service a market of over 400 million Arabic speakers with unmet educational requirements. The MENA area’s population is rising faster than that of developed countries, yet the region continues to lag in terms of education spending and investment. It has a high student-to-teacher ratio of 16.5 in the UAE, 19.6 in KSA, and 24.2 in Egypt, compared to 15.1 in the US and the UK. almentor bridges the gap by offering low-cost education and enhancing learners’ access to the labour market.
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Since 2016, almentor has collaborated with over 950 mentors to produce over 1,000 online courses for people, businesses, and governments. The startup recently launched monthly and annual subscription plans that provide learners with unlimited access to a library of over 700 courses on topics ranging from health to humanities to technology, entrepreneurship to business management, lifestyle to drama, sports to corporate communication to digital media.
Dr. Ihab Fikry, co-founder and CEO of Almentor, and Mr Ibrahim Kamel, co-founder and COO, mention that “Empowering ten million learners is a key milestone in almentor’s broader vision of creating hope and development opportunities for the people in MENA. We are very proud and excited to partner with an institution such as e& to create further impact in almentor’s journey.”
Eddy Farhat, Vice President at e& capital says: “We believe education is at an inflexion point in how it is delivered and consumed. Our investment in almentor aims to capitalize on this economic opportunity while driving tangible educational impact in our fast-growing region. We believe that almentor’s personalised learning experiences and high-quality Arabic content will be instrumental in achieving this goal. We are impressed with the experience of the founding team and the fresh perspective that the new senior hires bring onboard, and we will collaborate with them to support their vision and help them realize their aspirations.”
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Awad Capital Ltd., a DFSA-regulated business, is acting as the company’s financial advisor on its capital raising. We are happy to be helping Almentor in its aim of offering affordable quality education to everybody,” says Ziad Awad, CEO of Awad Capital.
Almentor has lately made many top hiring and major promotions as part of its expansion ambitions, including:
Sonia Lekhal (Chief Customer Officer): Prior to joining Almentor, Sonia served as Talabat’s Chief Marketing Officer. She has previously worked as the regional marketing director at Souq.com, the vice president of digital marketing at Emirates, and the chief marketing officer at OSN. Sonia’s extensive marketing knowledge will help almentor reach its next level of development.
Chief Technology Officer Adel Khalil: In Talabat, Adel most recently served as VP of Engineering. At Vezeeta, he had previously served as CTO. Adel will continuously improve the almentor technology and product to guarantee the best level of client satisfaction.
Chief Business Development Officer Sally Metwally: Sally has worked with Almentor for more than four years and played a key role in the development of the Enterprise, Government, and B2B verticals. Sally has held senior business development positions with TIEC, Misr El Kheir Foundation, and ITWORX in the past. Sally will keep forming crucial alliances between business and governmental organisations and almentor.
Deputy Chief Financial Officer Tharwat Ibrahim: Tharwat has worked at ExxonMobil Egypt for more than 20 years, most recently in the role of Controls Manager.
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Ahmed Faysal (Chief Content Production Officer): Ahmed has worked with Almentor for more than six years, serving in the capacities of Media Production Director and Senior Director of Educational Media. Ahmed will now oversee content operations and design.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard