Egypt-Born Tactful AI Bags US$1 Million Pre-Series A To Grow Its Agentic CX Platform

Egypt-born and UK-based customer experience platform Tactful AI has raised US$1 million in a pre-Series A funding round to accelerate the growth of its agentic, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven customer experience (CX) platform and support regional expansion.

The new investment was co-led by Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Foras AI and Cairo-based angel investment firm M Empire, with participation from deeptech angel investors, including Omar Gabr, co-founder of AI-driven mobile observability platform Luciq (formerly Instabug), Mohamed Samir, founder of semiconductor design firm Si-Bit, and Ahmed Fakhry, co-founder of semiconductor technology company Infinilink. The company’s co-founders, Mohamed El-Masry and Mohamed Hassan, also participated in the round. 

Founded in Egypt in 2016, Tactful AI builds enterprise customer experience (CX) software that enables organizations to move beyond rule-based automation toward agentic execution, allowing AI agents to handle customer interactions end to end within defined operational controls. The platform is designed to help enterprises adapt workflows, use customer data more effectively, and improve service operations without adding operational complexity. 

The pre-Series A proceeds will be used to strengthen the company’s position in Egypt, assess entry into new regional markets, and accelerate research and development to enhance the platform’s agentic capabilities, scalability, and integrations. The round follows a previously disclosed $5 million investment in research and development over recent years, with plans to increase that investment over the next three years. Tactful AI is also targeting a Series A round within the next 12 months. 

After completing a management buyback in July 2025, which returned the company to founder control following its 2022 acquisition by European communications firm Dstny, Tactful AI took a measured pause before returning to the fundraising market. “The decision to pursue this round was very deliberate," El-Masry told Inc. Arabia. "After the reacquisition, our priority wasn’t speed—it was clarity. We wanted to ensure that Tactful AI was operating as an independent company with a clear product direction, a repeatable commercial motion, and strong evidence of product-market fit. Over the past 12 months, we focused almost entirely on working closely with a small number of large enterprises to help them transform their customer experience and implement Agentic AI effectively in real production environments. That approach resulted in over 100x growth in platform usage, not driven by marketing spend, but by real operational adoption.” 

That progress, El-Masry added, translated into tangible signals for investors assessing the company’s readiness to scale. “The proof points that gave investors confidence were simple and concrete,” El Masry said. “Strong enterprise references across retail, fintech, and logistics. Clear evidence that customers were using the platform at scale and expanding usage organically. A product that was solving real problems faster and with less complexity than legacy CX tools. And a team that has navigated complexity before—both technically and commercially. This round isn’t about experimentation. It’s about taking something that’s working and scaling it with discipline.” 

El-Masry also highlighted Tactful AI's home base of Egypt as having been a critical testing ground for the company’s product and operating model. “Egypt has been one of the most demanding—and valuable—environments we could have built in," he said. "The scale, channel mix, and pace of change here force you to build systems that are robust, flexible, and operationally honest. Customers engage heavily through social media and messaging platforms, volumes spike suddenly during campaigns or seasons, and teams need to adapt quickly without relying on large engineering resources." 

Those realities, El-Masry added, directly informed how Tactful AI's offering was designed and refined. “The biggest lessons we learned are [that] flexibility beats feature depth: teams need to change workflows daily, not quarterly," he said. "No-code is not a ‘nice to have’—it’s essential if business users are going to move at market speed. AI only works when grounded in real operations and clean data, not when layered on top of fragmented systems. These lessons translate directly to many EMEA markets. Different countries, different regulations—but the same underlying need for adaptable, resilient CX infrastructure.” 

As Tactful AI looks ahead to its next phase of growth, one of its investors, Foras AI General Partner Mohamed Aboulnaga, has said that the company has the potential "to build a category-defining CX platform for the region and beyond." Commenting on Aboulnaga's statement, El-Masry said, “Defining a category today isn’t about claiming a new label—it’s about changing how buyers think about a problem. In customer experience, the shift we see is from tools and workflows to outcomes and execution. AI is accelerating this shift, but it’s also exposing the limits of legacy platforms that are rigid, complex, and slow to adapt. What differentiates our approach is that we’re not trying to replace humans or overwhelm teams with technology. We’re focused on enabling business users, not just engineers. Allowing organizations to adapt continuously, not follow static best practices. Treating CX as infrastructure, not just software. Global incumbents were built in a different era—optimized for seats, tickets, and configuration-heavy systems. We’re building for an agentic future, where AI can assist, recommend, and act safely, while humans remain in control. That shift—toward speed, clarity, and controlled autonomy—is what we believe defines the next category of CX platforms.” 

Meanwhile, from a personal perspective, El-Masry noted that his experience at Tactful AI has fundamentally reframed his benchmarks for achievement as an entrepreneur. “My definition of success has changed significantly," he said. "Earlier in my career, success was about scale, valuation, or the outcome of a deal. Today, success is about building something that endures—a product, a team, and a culture that can adapt as markets and technologies change. Going through both an acquisition and a reacquisition taught me that not all growth is healthy growth. Control over vision and execution matters more than speed. And that long-term value is created by consistency, not shortcuts.” 

Those hard-earned lessons now inform the counsel El-Masry offers fellow entrepreneurs. “Don’t confuse momentum with progress," he advised. "Stay close to your customers for longer than feels comfortable. And be very intentional about when and why you raise capital. Capital should amplify clarity—not compensate for its absence." 

Pictured in the lead image are Tactful AI co-founders Mohamed El-Masry and Mohamed Hassan. Image courtesy Tactful AI.