Franco-Tunisian AI Startup Addvocate Secures Backing From 216 Capital

Addvocate, a Franco-Tunisian startup specialized in optimizing sales performance with artificial intelligence (AI), has secured a strategic investment from the Tunisia-based early-stage venture capital firm 216 Capital. 

Founded by Ridha Mami and Sofyan Chekir in 2024, Addvocate, which is headquartered between France and Tunisia, tackles sales pipeline inefficiencies by serving as a digital co-pilot that unifies data and equips teams with actionable insights ahead of meetings. The new investment is set to enable Addvocate to fast-track innovation and expand globally, strengthening its position as a frontrunner in AI-powered intelligent sales. 

According to co-founder and CEO Mami, Addvocate's vision is to transform how sales teams interact with customer relationship management systems (CRMs) by turning them from static databases into living systems that move with the business. Its latest tool, Nudge, which integrates directly into CRMs, enhances performance before, during, and after every sales interaction. 

“We believe CRMs need to evolve," Mami told Inc. Arabia. "Today, they’re too static—great at storing data, but disconnected from the reality of how business moves. Nudge by Addvocate integrates natively with CRMs—we don’t replace them. Instead, we act as the missing piece that salespeople have been asking for. By detecting signals, surfacing insights, and guiding actions, we turn the CRM into something more dynamic, something that moves with the business rather than lagging behind it.” Mami adds that Addvocate's impact goes beyond efficiency—it directly affects how salespeople spend their time. “We give salespeople back up to two hours every single day—time they used to waste on non-selling activities like account research or pipeline admin," he said. "That’s time they can now spend with customers, building relationships, and driving revenue." 

Mami revealed that the idea for Addvocate emerged from a persistent gap he had witnessed throughout his 15-year-long career leading sales in B2B software as a service (SaaS) scaleups: endless hours spent preparing for client meetings, the struggle of piecing together scattered data, and, most frustratingly, deals stalling without clear reasons—undermining business predictability. “I’ve been in sales for more than 15 years, both as an individual contributor and a team leader," he added. "And in all those years, I faced the same three problems: pipeline stalls—deals going dark because signals weren’t being caught or acted on. Meeting unpreparedness—reps wasting hours preparing instead of selling. [And] static CRMs—systems that recorded history but didn’t guide the present. Those pains cost teams weeks of momentum, lower conversion rates, and missed forecasts. That’s why we created Nudge by Addvocate—to ensure sales teams don’t have to live through those inefficiencies again.” 

And while Mami's own experience helped the team identify the gaps that Addvocate was built to fill, he credited much of the company’s technical prowess to his co-founder and Chief Technical Officer, Taleb. “My co-founder, Achref Taleb, is the mastermind behind our solution," he said. "He comes from a pure full-stack development background, and previously built a DoorDash-like app for the Tunisian market. Nudge by Addvocate is actually his third startup. He knows how to architect and scale complex platforms, and he brings the execution power to match the sales experience I bring. Together, we deeply understand the problem—and we have the means to solve it."

For Mami, solving the challenges he listed lies in tackling pipeline inefficiencies and rethinking how sales signals are used. “Most sales tools today use signals for pipeline generation—intent data, buying triggers, inbound scoring," Mami explained. "That’s useful, but once the opportunity enters the pipeline, those signals are often ignored. Deals slow down, momentum is lost, and CRMs just sit there as passive databases." By addressing the blind spots where deals often stall, Addvocate offers a sharper solution. “[With Nudge, we] detect and surface the right signals inside the pipeline—deal velocity, buyer engagement, activity patterns—and assist reps in acting on them at the right time," he said. "Humans can’t track dozens of deals with the same level of rigor, but AI can. Nudge by Addvocate applies that consistency across the entire pipeline, ensuring no signal is missed and no deal is left to stall." 

Dhekra Khelifi, Founding Partner at 216 Capital.

Reflecting on the factors that led to 216 Capital’s decision to invest in Addvocate, Founding Partner Dhekra Khelifi pointed to the qualities that set the startup apart from its competitors. “We saw Addvocate as a strategic bet, not just an opportunistic one, in the crowded AI sales space," she said. "While many competitors offer incremental improvements, Addvocate's model stood out for three key differentiators,” she explained.

Khelifi pointed to Addvocate's AI-first foundation as a key advantage, having been built as a sales performance operating system from day one, rather than having AI features bolted on top. This, she said, allows it to seamlessly integrate intelligence to provide salespeople with insights they might otherwise miss. She also noted that adoption was equally critical, which is why the system relies on behavioral nudges that coach reps in real time, making AI a partner rather than a taskmaster, and ensuring sustained engagement. Finally, she noted, Addvocate is solving a core inefficiency in sales: the 35–50 percent of opportunities that typically stall in pipelines. By transforming those signals into actionable, data-driven insights, the platform helps keep deals moving forward. 

For 216 Capital, the bet on Addvocate is more than just a deal—it also reflects the firm’s thesis and broader vision for where the next wave of enterprise software innovation will emerge. “Investing in Addvocate perfectly aligns with our thesis of backing AI-native enterprise software that solves fundamental problems from Africa and the Middle East," Khelifi explained. "It's not just another tool; it's a new operating system for sales.”

Khelifi also highlighted the advantages of embedding Addvocate into 216 Capital’s wider ecosystem. “There are clear synergies between Addvocate across our portfolio companies like Talenteo and Logidoo as a go-to-market solution," she said. "We'll leverage, as we always did, our extensive network of corporate partners in the region to accelerate their business development. Our goal is to make Addvocate the sales performance engine for our entire ecosystem, demonstrating the global potential of tech innovation from our region."

In terms of the road ahead for Addvocate, Mami told us that the new influx of funds will allow it to take a significant leap forward, evolving beyond a sales preparation tool to become a comprehensive sales performance platform designed to tackle the demands of today’s business landscape. And when it comes to competition, Mami made it clear that Addvocate’s strategy is not to go head-to-head with industry leaders, but rather, to supplement their offerings. “We’re not here to fight the giants head-on," he said. "Salesforce and HubSpot are phenomenal platforms, but like any big system, they have gaps. They weren’t designed to manage deal momentum at the micro level. Nudge by Addvocate fills those gaps. We’re not replacing CRMs—we’re improving them. We natively integrate with Salesforce, HubSpot, and the tools teams already rely on. That way, reps don’t have to jump between systems—Nudge by Addvocate enriches the CRM experience itself, making it more intelligent and actionable." 

By focusing on one specific challenge and integrating with other CRMs, the company is thus looking to carve out a distinctive niche for itself. “We take one specific process—pipeline execution—and make it smarter, faster, and more consistent," Mami explained. "That’s how we add measurable value without forcing teams to rip and replace the core of their stack."

Looking ahead, Addvocate is setting its sights on scaling well beyond its Franco-Tunisian roots. “With 216 Capital’s backing, we’re scaling Nudge by Addvocate from a Franco-Tunisian startup into a globally competitive AI player," Mami said. "Our focus is on Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and the US, where the pains of stalled pipelines and static CRMs are universal. In EMEA specifically, sales teams are often selling across multiple countries, cultures, and languages. That makes pipeline momentum even harder to manage—because signals get fragmented, workflows become inconsistent, and salespeople spend far too much time preparing instead of engaging."  

Mami also emphasized that the company’s expansion strategy rests on practical integration and demonstrable outcomes. ‘We’ll grow by embedding ourselves in the tools teams already use, by delivering measurable impact on conversion and forecast accuracy, and by positioning ourselves not as another sales tool, but as a sales performance operating system," he said. "One that ensures pipeline momentum doesn’t get lost, no matter the market."

Pictured in the lead image is Ridha Mami, co-founder and CEO of Addvocate. Courtesy of Addvocate.