Cairo-based AI company Nanovate raises $1M in a pre-seed funding round led by a group of angel investors this October, only 9 months after the company officially started operations.
About Nanovate
Founded by Nancy Madbouly and Ahmed Gamal, Nanovate is an AI technology company focused on developing end-to-end Arabic AI solutions: advanced voice and chat AI agents, automation systems, and customized AI solutions that help businesses across MENA operate faster, smarter, and in 22 dialects of their own language.
The startup is backed by MINT Incubator by EG Bank, and Raya FutureTECH Accelerator. Nanovate was selected as one of the standout graduates for its innovative approach to localizing AI for the MENA region.
The Story Behind Nanovate
Nancy Madbouly, CTO, had built a strong portfolio specializing in web3 and tech for the past 6 years, becoming a strong tech influencer in AI. After taking a personal break from creating content, Nancy was surprised by the flow of messages from her followers missing her valuable content, and the flow of company founders asking for consultancy services.
One of the first requests Nancy received was from a Turkish company in need of AI agents for their call center, and that was when Nancy realized, despite the influx of languages the company offers its services in, Arabic wasn’t one of them. She confirmed a general low interest in the Arabic language after reaching out to different companies.
Automated Arabic-speaking AI agent
Nancy found a way to create an automated Arabic-speaking AI agent for call centers, and the business kept booming: they started getting more requests for AI chat agents, and launched their own AI, Niva—short for Nanovate Intelligent Virtual Agent, for less than the margin of how it would normally cost, and officially registered and launched Nanovate in January 2025. landing their very first client just two months later.
“I had a dream to build an Arabic solution for the Arab world, and this was our sign to truly go for it, from Egypt to the entirety of the MENA region.”, Nancy said.
Nanovate Now
Having built their own LLM models, Nanovate now offers AI chat agents, automation systems, customized solutions, and just launched the Beta version of their dashboard back in September, allowing companies to build their own AI chat agent and more, combining Arabic-native language understanding, real-time speech and emotion AI, and workflow automation into one seamless ecosystem.
Having built their own agents and automation systems with different models, integrations, and flexible deployment options, Nanovate now offers AI voice and chat agents, automation systems, and customized solutions, and has just launched the Beta version of their dashboard back in September, allowing companies to build their own AI chat and voice solutions without any coding experience. With this approach, Nanovate combines Arabic-native language understanding, real-time speech, sentiment analysis, emotionally intelligent AI, and workflow automations into one seamless ecosystem that fits within any business structure or setup.
What’s Next?
With this investment round, the company will focus on expanding its presence in KSA and the UAE, scaling its AI ecosystem to accommodate more industries, and developing deeper integrations with CRMs, ERPs, and business tools, investing in further AI R&D, and, of course, further growing its team.
“This isn’t just another AI startup — it’s a movement to put Arabic at the center of global innovation. We’re building technology that understands us, speaks like us, and works for our region. With this round, we’re ready to take Arabic AI to a whole new level.”— Ahmed Gamal, Co-Founder & CEO of Nanovate
