Google has announced the list of startups for the second cohort of the ‘Google for Startups Accelerator Middle East and North Africa’.
The three-month digital accelerator programme is aimed at Seed to Series A technology startups based in the region. The twelve technology startups come from six Arab countries across the automotive, agriculture, fitness, fintech, real-estate, e-commerce, and entertainment sectors.
The startups were selected based on criteria such as: the problem they are trying to solve; how they are creating value for users; in addition to their willingness to use Machine Learning technology to solve business challenges and successfully scale in the long run.
Five of the startups that have been selected for the second cohort are women-led businesses. Those selected are:
- Bankiom (UAE): A super-banking app that allows customers in the GCC to open an account and get a spending card on their phones in three minutes or less.
- Ejaro (Saudi Arabia): The first licensed peer-to-peer vehicle sharing platform in the GCC, connecting local vehicle owners with individuals who are looking to rent vehicles.
- ElCoach (Egypt): A fitness app that offers hyper-personalised fitness and nutrition plans based on each individual needs & goals, and fuelled by the best-in-class AI model and the expertise and knowledge of leading fitness and nutrition experts in the MENA region.
- FreshSource (Egypt): A B2B fresh food-supply platform transforming the lives of producers, businesses and consumers through the use of data and technology promoting fairness, transparency and farmer empowerment. [♀️ Female co-founded business]
- Hekouky (Egypt): An online legal-tech platform that digitises and simplifies the user’s experience with the law and legal services. [♀️ women-led business]
- Invygo (UAE): An app-based car subscription service that provides customers access to dealership verified cars.
- Mawsuah (Jordan): An online Arabic content rewarding-platform for expert communities using Blockchain technology. [♀️ Female co-founded business]
- MyTindy (Morocco): A marketplace that introduces everyone to Morocco’s local products designed by talented craftspeople. [♀️ Female co-founded business]
- OTO (Saudi Arabia): OTO is the shipping software that helps online businesses to ship, track and return their ecommerce orders with the best shipping carriers from a single dashboard.
- Sabbar (Saudi Arabia): A B2B on-demand staffing platform that connects businesses with vetted & qualified individual workers in the retail, hospitality, and entertainment industries. [♀️ Female co-founded business]
- SINC (Bahrain): A user-friendly mobile platform for staff to share real-time data on-site, which bridges the gap between the worksite and the office environments.
- Zammit (Egypt): An e-commerce website builder that helps merchants build websites without any prior technical knowledge with access to local shipping and payment enablers.
The accelerator programme will run virtually starting this week till the end of September. Selected startups will receive mentorship in: Machine Learning; Cloud; digital marketing; product design / UX; customer acquisition; and leadership development.
Additionally, Google will offer workshops on ‘Design Thinking’ to all startups that have applied for the second cohort.
The ‘Google for Startups Accelerator Middle East and North Africa’ was announced last year as part of ‘Grow Stronger with Google’, a programme to accelerate the MENA region’s economic recovery by offering digital tools, training, and financial grants to support local businesses and job seekers.
The first cohort included 10 top startups from six Arab countries: Abwaab (Jordan); Carers (Jordan); Chefaa (Egypt); DABCHY (Tunisia); Designhubz (UAE); Lamsa (UAE); Lendo (Saudi Arabia); Nafas Meditation App (Oman); Viavii (Jordan) and 360VUZ (UAE).
For more details about the programme, please visit the official website: g.co/AcceleratorMENA
