In a remarkable development for the Egyptian artificial intelligence landscape, Widebot, a pioneering startup specializing in chatbot technology, has successfully concluded a significant investment round. The funding drive was spearheaded by Egypt’s Disruptech Fund, with the intention to channel investments into emerging fintech ventures across the Arabian Gulf, particularly in the thriving markets of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Speaking on this milestone, Mohamed Nabil, the co-founder and CEO of Widebot, expressed his delight at the overwhelming response from investors in the wake of their previous financing round. Nabil hinted at the possibility of another round of funding, slated to commence at the end of the second quarter in 2024, which is expected to attract both regional and Egyptian investors.
Nabil emphasized Widebot’s already substantial presence in multiple regional markets, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The company also collaborates with partners in various other nations, such as the Sultanate of Oman, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, and Libya.
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As part of its ambitious agenda, Widebot aims to achieve sales exceeding $4 million by the end of this year, a significant leap from the $2 million achieved in 2022. The company has set its sights even higher, targeting sales of approximately $10 million by the conclusion of 2024.
Since its inception, Widebot has proudly served more than 35,000 companies, facilitating over 1.2 billion messages and connecting with more than 80 million users. This impressive track record has translated into sales of over $6 million to date.
In recognition of its groundbreaking work, Widebot was selected from a pool of 30 startups to join the Dubai Future Foundation’s business accelerator initiative program. This honor came after competing with more than 600 companies from around the world. Widebot presented an innovative artificial intelligence model named “Aqel,” built on “Generative AI” technology and designed for the Arabic language. Aqel boasts a data size of over 7.5 billion parameters and contributes to the localization of artificial intelligence in the Middle East region.
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Elaborating on Widebot’s accomplishments, Mohamed Nabil highlighted the “Aql” program’s participation in a competition dedicated to government and media agencies in the United Arab Emirates. The program harnesses artificial intelligence to provide information, automate customer service inquiries, enhance response times, and analyze customer feedback, thereby assisting decision-makers in shaping more effective policies.
The idea for Widebot originated from co-founder Mohamed Mostafa, a programmer who was working as a freelancer at the time. He received a client request to develop a Chatbot, a relatively uncommon technology at that point. The concept of launching a pioneering company in Egypt and the Middle East, specializing in Arabic-language Chatbots, was discussed. The aim was to capitalize on this opportunity and generate profits.
In June 2017, the initial version of Widebot was launched, and it was showcased at the Center for Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship under the Ministry of Communications. Subsequently, the team secured a grant of 120 thousand pounds, along with incubation support and office space in a shared workspace.
The primary objective was to establish a company focused on supporting Arabic chatbots using artificial intelligence, with offerings encompassing various Arabic dialects, including Egyptian, Saudi, Emirati, Lebanese, Jordanian, and more.
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To date, the company’s success and innovation have attracted investments totaling $1.6 million from both Egyptian and Saudi investors, signaling a bright future for the company’s continued growth and contributions to the AI landscape.
Widebot AI Widebot AI
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 con