US-based venture capital firm Openner has launched an accelerator programme in Egypt, looking to invest in 50 early-stage startups.

The accelerator is aimed at supporting pre-seed and seed stage startups with a ready minimum viable product (MVP), helping them refine their product offering, accelerate their growth and become ready to raise funding. 

“We want startups to organically grow into revenue generating companies without having to raise funds, match them with a strategic investor when they are ready for rapid growth and position them as acquisition-ready,” said Ash Rofail, founder and general partner at Openner. “We have a very strong and proven track record building companies that have exited or have become leaders in their target industries, with 10 per cent of our portfolio companies exiting within three years of operation. Openner is entering the Egyptian market because it believes in its geographic and cultural centrality, and its promising tech talent.”

Openner has co-invested in startups with Andreesen Horrowitz, NEA, Sequoia, Khosla Ventures, YCombinator, Goldman Sachs and several other global top-tier VCs, and its portfolio companies received follow-up investments from ExxonMobil, Mastercard, CitiVentures and other multinationals, as well as from dozens of tier-1, US-based VCs.

It has already invested in 100 startups, deploying $25 million in over 100 portfolio companies in the US since Q4-2016, with an aggregate valuation of $2.95 billion.