Sawari Ventures

Sawari Ventures is one of Egypt's most established venture capital firms, founded in 2010 by Ahmed El Alfi, a serial entrepreneur and investor who has spent decades bridging the US and Egyptian tech ecosystems. The firm manages approximately $70 million across its first fund (structured as dual vehicles: a North Africa Fund incorporated in the Netherlands and an Egypt Fund incorporated locally), and is raising a second fund targeting $200 million with plans to expand beyond North Africa into Kenya and West Africa.

The portfolio spans 19 companies and two seed-stage vehicles (Flat6Labs Cairo and Flat6Labs Tunis), with notable exits including KNGINE (acquired by Samsung in 2018), Instabug (bug-reporting platform serving 25,000+ companies), and Fatura (B2B marketplace, exited 2022). The current portfolio includes MoneyFellows (digital money circles), SWVL (mass transit, NASDAQ-listed), blnk (buy-now-pay-later), Si-Ware (semiconductor lab-on-a-chip), Pearl (fabless semiconductor), and Proteinea (biotech and protein engineering), which shows the firm's willingness to back deep tech alongside consumer fintech.

What makes Sawari distinctive is the deep tech conviction. While most Africa-focused VCs cluster around fintech and B2B SaaS, Sawari has consistently backed hardware, semiconductor, and biotech companies that require longer time horizons and specialized technical diligence. Ahmed El Alfi co-founded Si-Ware Systems, a semiconductor company that developed the world's first single-chip MEMS spectrometer, so the team's deep tech expertise is not theoretical.

The firm also partnered with Bpifrance (France's largest VC) to facilitate capital exchange between France, Africa, and the Middle East, which gives portfolio companies access to European corporate and institutional networks. Fund II targets $200 million with plans to allocate roughly 70% to Egypt and the remainder across Tunisia, Morocco, Kenya, and West Africa, signaling a significant geographic expansion.