Cairo-Based Nanovate Raises US$1 Million In Pre-Seed Round

Nanovate, a Cairo-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup has secured US$1 million in pre-seed funding from a group of angel investors, nine months after officially launching its operations. 

Founded by Nancy Madbouly and Ahmed Gamal in Egypt in January 2025, Nanovate—which is backed by the MINT Incubator by EG Bank and the Raya FutureTECH Accelerator—develops end-to-end Arabic AI solutions, including advanced voice and chat agents, automation systems, and customized AI tools in 22 Arabic dialects that are designed to help businesses across the MENA region work smarter and faster. 

In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Madbouly, who serves as the Chief Technology Officer of Nanovate, shared that the company’s fundraising decision came earlier than planned—a direct response to unexpected market traction. “We raised now, because demand came faster than we expected," she said. "Within just months of launching, we had real clients, recurring revenue, and requests from multiple industries that wanted to deploy Arabic-speaking AI agents and automations: scaling that required fresh capital." 

With Nanovate, Madbouly said that that she and her team aimed to design large language models (LLMs) that could think in Arabic as naturally as they perform. "We started with lightweight and fine-tuning, domain-specific LLMs trained on curated Arabic datasets," she explained. "Instead of competing on size, we focused on efficiency, accuracy, and cultural nuance." Building on that foundation, its architecture was then intentionally designed to merge multilingual capability with deep localization. “Our model architecture combines fine-tuned multilingual transformer models with Nanovate’s proprietary voice and text pipelines, allowing us to handle multiple dialects with contextual accuracy," Madbouly explained. "For speech, we integrated custom text-to-speech (TTS)—voice synthesis and ASR (automatic speech recognition) systems trained on different Arabic regional accents."

This layered approach, Madbouly added, is what made it possible to achieve fluency across diverse Arabic dialects in record time. “Building support for 22 Arabic dialects wasn’t about brute force," she said. "It was about layered fine-tuning—leveraging similarities between dialects while preserving their unique linguistic identities. That’s how we achieved natural fluency in months, not years." 

Having developed its own agents and automation systems powered by various models, integrations, and flexible deployment options, Nanovate now delivers a comprehensive suite of AI voice and chat agents, automation tools, and customized AI solutions. In September, the company also launched the beta version of its dashboard, which brings together Arabic-native language understanding, real-time speech, sentiment analysis, emotionally intelligent AI, and workflow automation into a single, seamless ecosystem that can adapt to any business environment. 

Madbouly noted that Nanovate's beta launch marks a major step in making Arabic AI accessible to every business. “Our beta dashboard is where AI meets control," she said. "For the first time, businesses can build and manage their Arabic-speaking AI agents without any coding. Through one unified interface, they can create voice and chat agents, automate workflows like booking, ordering, and customer support, integrate across WhatsApp, social media, websites, apps, and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, and monitor live conversations, calls, and analytics,” Madbouly explained. “In short, the dashboard turns what used to take weeks of technical setup into a few clicks. It’s like giving every business a full AI department—but in Arabic.” 

Today, the company is shifting its focus from establishing proof of concept to regional and global expansion. “We’ve already started expanding commercially into Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the Gulf,” Madbouly said. “Our vision has always been to build from the MENA for the world—starting with Arabic AI and expanding globally from there.” Nanovate is also channeling its efforts toward industries where communication sits at the heart of daily operations. “We’re currently focused on e-commerce, education, and banking—all sectors that rely heavily on human communication and customer experience," she said. "Our AI agents are already helping companies automate customer support, sales, and operations, all while speaking Arabic naturally."

Meanwhile, with the new investment, the company plans to expand its AI ecosystem to serve a wider range of industries. The next phase will focus on building deeper integrations with CRM systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, and other business tools, advancing its AI research and development, and continuing to grow its team to support rapid regional scaling. Here, Madbouly highlighted that Nanovate’s participation in EG Bank’s MINT Incubator and Raya FutureTECH Accelerator was instrumental in building the momentum that led to this stage of its growth. “Programs like MINT Incubator and Raya FutureTECH Accelerator were gamechangers," she said. "They connected us with mentors, corporates, and investors who understood what we were building. They also validated that what we’re doing—Arabic-native AI for real business use cases—isn’t just innovative, it’s necessary."

Finally, as she reflected on her journey as a woman leading a deep-tech AI company, Madbouly offered a message of conviction and confidence to other female founders in the region. “My biggest advice is: don’t wait for permission to build hard things, and being a woman doesn’t make it any harder,” she said. According to Madbouly, innovation in AI and deep tech isn’t confined to gender—it’s defined by courage and curiosity. “AI, robotics, and deep tech aren’t ‘male spaces’—they’re spaces for bold thinkers," she said. "If you have the vision and the grit, start building. Surround yourself with knowledge, keep learning, and trust your instincts."

For Madbouly, Nanovate’s story is proof that innovation can stem from anywhere—and from anyone. “When I started Nanovate, I wanted to prove that technical innovation can come from Cairo, in Arabic, led by women—and that’s exactly what we’re doing," she said. "The more women lead in AI, the more inclusive and intelligent this industry will become." 

Pictured in the lead image is Nancy Madbouly and Ahmed Gamal, co-founders of Nanovate. Courtesy of Nanovate.