Egypt- And UK-Based KNOT Technologies Wraps Up US$1 Million Pre-Seed

Egypt- and UK-based online ticketing platform KNOT Technologies has raised US$1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Cairo-based venture capital firm A15. 

Founded by Ahmed Abdalla and Hussein ElBendak in London in 2025, KNOT is developing an artificial intelligence (AI)-native ticketing and access control platform aimed at curbing fraud, enhancing demand visibility, and limiting revenue leakage into unregulated resale markets. 

In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Abdalla and ElBendak shared the story of how KNOT emerged from their personal encounters with a broken system. “Like many fans, we have tried to secure tickets to major events, and either could not get them at all, or ended up paying a premium, only to later discover the tickets were fraudulent," Abdalla recalled. "That experience made the problem feel urgent and deeply broken: fans lose trust, organizers lose control, and value leaks into unregulated resale markets.” 

From the outset, KNOT set out to address these structural weaknesses by building technology that reconnects organizers directly with their audiences. “Our core offering is to connect businesses such as event organizers, sports clubs, and venues to their audiences, and to build trust between both sides using technology," Abdalla explained. "We are not trying to be 'another ticketing provider.' We are building the infrastructure that helps prevent fraud, reduce touting, and restore integrity to distribution and access."

As such, before building the platform, the founders, whose backgrounds span experience at technology company Meta, investment bank Goldman Sachs, and Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investor Mubadala, conducted extensive research with rights holders, venues, and operators across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. They found that legacy ticketing systems often provided limited visibility into demand, offered little control over secondary markets, and frequently pushed fans toward unsafe resale channels. 

Those findings, ElBendak explained, informed the technical architecture underpinning the platform. “KNOT was built with scalability in mind from day one," ElBendak said. "Architecturally, we treat ticketing, identity, access, and entitlement as configurable building blocks rather than hard-coded workflows. That allows us to support different event formats without rebuilding the platform each time. The same core primitives can be applied across sectors while adapting rules, policies, and integrations based on the context, such as verification thresholds, transfer and resale constraints, entry flows, and partner requirements." 

Today, KNOT is emerging from stealth after securing more than 50 enterprise customers through its initial rollout and is preparing for its next phase of growth. With plans to expand across the Middle East and Europe, the latest funding round will support product development, international growth, and deeper integrations across the live events value chain as the platform moves beyond its first markets. 

Critically, the founders told us that they see KNOT's design philosophy aligning closely with how the market itself is evolving. “Over the next five years, the industry will move toward stronger identity-linked verification, more enforceable controls on resale, and deeper real-time visibility for organizers," ElBendak said. "Whether incumbent systems evolve quickly or not, the direction is clear: trust and integrity will become a baseline requirement, not a premium feature.” 

As KNOT thus moves into its next phase of growth, the founders noted that collaboration will act as a key driver of both scale and integration across the live events value chain. “KNOT is built around connecting businesses and people, and the strongest outcomes happen when we are tightly embedded into the ecosystems that already shape how fans discover, purchase, and access events," Abdalla said. "The right partnerships accelerate distribution, deepen product capability, and help standardize trust and verification across multiple touchpoints, from purchase through to entry. We are also excited about what is ahead, and there are several partnership announcements that will be made in the near future that reflect the scale of what we are building." 

Drawing on his experience building in complex, infrastructure-heavy sectors, ElBendak also offered advice for founders working in similar spaces. “Do the research early, and do more of it than you think you need," he said. "Speak to customers relentlessly. Speak to operators who have been in the industry for years. Learn the edge cases, the incentives, and the real reasons systems look the way they do today. Infrastructure problems are rarely solved by a single clever feature. They are solved by deep understanding, patient iteration, and a genuine hunger to keep asking “why” until you reach the root cause. If you build from that level of insight, you can design solutions that do not just look good in theory, but actually change outcomes in the real world." 

Pictured in the lead image are KNOT co-founders Ahmed Abdalla and Hussein ElBendak. Image courtesy KNOT.