Venture Lab Celebrates the Graduation of 19 Startups in Demo Day Cycle 12

On June 25, the AUC Venture Lab celebrated its Demo Day witnessing the graduation of entrepreneurs from its Startup Accelerator’s Arab African International Bank Cycle 12. During the day, 19 accelerated startups pitched their business ideas and showcased their products and services and were evaluated based on milestones achieved during incubation.

The event also provides a chance to recognize prominent contributors to the entrepreneurial ecosystem for their outstanding efforts and support through the AUC Venture Lab Award. This cycle, Tarek El Kady, founder of Techne and Alex Angels, took home the award for his efforts.

In his opening remarks, Ayman Ismail, Abdul Latif Jameel Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship and AUC Venture Lab Director stated: “This cycle is very special for AUC Venture Lab. As AUC celebrates its centennial, V-Lab is also celebrating six years, 12 cycles and more than 150 startups. With that, we are pleased to double the size of our cohort with the addition of new sectors. We are also deepening the knowledge and mentorship that we provide for our startups.” He added: “We are proud that V-Lab startups are having the strongest impact in the market with the highest growth rates and attracting significant investment in Egypt and internationally.” 

The Venture Lab Startup Accelerator is a 16-week program that provides support for early-stage and innovative startups to grow their businesses using evidence-based entrepreneurship and learn startup methods. In cycle 12, the Venture Lab incubated startups in various fields including healthcare innovation, energy and environmental sustainability, e-commerce and creative industries. 

Startups in cycle 12 included: Green Waste; Aye Tech; Esorus; Hall of Talents; Cartoona; Monkey Bekia; Connection; Dawaia.com; Doctoorum; PlusOn; ClinPrime; Caroline Beauty; Little Blessing; Lemon Spaces; Tobadaa; Fntique; Wanas; Tivity and Tafra.

This cycle, included a range of sponsorship support including Drosos Foundation for the Creative Track, Shell for the Energy and Sustainability Track and Cleopatra Hospitals Group for the Healthcare Innovation Track, while general sponsors included Oxfam and Danish-Arab Partnership Programme (DAPP).

AUC Venture Lab is the first university-based incubator in Egypt that aims to commercialize technologies and innovations developed by Egypt-based startups into commercially viable ventures. It also allows the startups to use the facilities of AUC and the database of the university to create a link between the alumni network and the startups.