KSA-Based Intella Lands US$12.5 Million Series A For Arabic AI Expansion

Egypt-born, KSA-headquartered provider of dialectal Arabic speech intelligence Intella has pocketed US$12.5 million in a Series A round led by Netherlands-based global consumer internet group Prosus, with participation from regional and global investors like 500 Global, Wa’ed Ventures, Hala Ventures, Idrisi Ventures, and HearstLab. With this round, the total funding the company has raised so far stands at $16.9 million. 

Founded by Nour Taher and Omar Mansour in Egypt in 2021, Intella develops artificial intelligence (AI) models tailored to Arabic dialects. Its products include transcription, analytics, and AI-powered customer engagement tools, covering more than 25 dialects, with the company reporting that its speech-to-text models have reached an accuracy rate of 95.73 percent. 

In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Mansour, co-founder and CTO of Intella, said that investor interest in his enterprise reflects both the size of the opportunity in the MENA and the company's ability to solve problems that have long held back Arabic AI. “I believe that our investors, including a global powerhouse like Prosus, were convinced by the same factors that drive our mission every day," he said. "As their team noted, the market opportunity in MENA is enormous, but Arabic AI models have historically underperformed due to the unique challenges of complex phonetics and a lack of high-quality, dialect-specific data. Our investors saw that Intella is changing that reality. They backed us because they saw a massive, underserved market and a team that had built the only truly defensible technology to solve the core accuracy problem. It’s a classic case of a huge market meeting a superior product.” 

Mansour also pointed to Intella’s Arabic-first foundation as being its standout feature. “What sets us apart is our foundational approach," he explained. "We didn't take a global model and try to 'teach it' Arabic. We spent 18 months building one of the largest, most diverse proprietary datasets of conversational Arabic dialects from the ground up. Our technology was born in the region, for the region, and is refined daily by our team of native Arabic-speaking AI engineers. This 'Arabic-first' DNA is our core differentiator.” 

Having more than doubled its revenue in 2024, Intella now expects further growth in 2025. As it continues to invest in Arabic-first AI to strengthen its position in the regional market, Intella is also building go-to-market teams in Egypt and Saudi Arabia to serve clients in finance, telecommunications, and government, with the new capital also set to fuel research and development, product expansion, and regional hiring. 

Omar Mansour, co-founder and CTO, Intella. Image courtesy Intella. 

In July this year, Intella introduced Ziila—its Arabic-born digital human—through a partnership with Jumia, Africa’s largest e-commerce platform, powering a new voice-ordering feature for its customers. According to Mansour, Ziila represents a turning point for regional AI. “Ziila represents a fundamental shift in how businesses and consumers interact in our region," he said. "For years, technology has forced users to adapt to its limitations. With Ziila, we've built an AI that adapts to the user. Her significance lies in her ability to understand and converse in authentic, local dialects, moving beyond the robotic, transactional nature of traditional chatbots into the realm of truly intelligent, human-like engagement.” 

While Ziila’s current role is in customer service, Mansour noted that its potential applications are far wider. “Ziila is an 'action' agent," he said. "Her true potential is unlocked when she moves from simply answering questions to executing complex tasks. Our recent launch with Jumia is a powerful public validation of this, where Ziila is acting as an intelligent shopping assistant in a high-demand e-commerce environment.” 

In terms of the road ahead, Mansour revealed that Intella’s strategy is to now scale an ecosystem of interconnected, complementary products, which allows the company to maintain its edge by focusing on the application layer. “We are not competing to build the largest general-purpose language model," he explained. "Instead, we are building an ecosystem of products that reinforce each other. IntellaCX, our analytics product audits and improves Ziila, our agent, creating a powerful feedback loop. Our competitive advantage will continue to grow as we deepen this product integration and use our superior data to solve increasingly complex, industry-specific problems that remain out of reach for generic AI.” 

Beyond e-commerce, Mansour noted that other industries have also started to show strong interest in Intella's offerings. “We are now seeing immense and immediate demand from two other key sectors that are ripe for this kind of transformation," he said. "First, the insurance industry, where Ziila can automate the entire claims and quoting process, providing an instant and seamless experience for customers. Second, the healthcare industry, for example, where she can manage patient appointments and answer common service questions to enhance patient care. We're also seeing huge potential in the automotive sector, where she can enable customers to book test drives and get instant quotes, creating a modern, streamlined sales experience. These are the kinds of high-value applications that will drive our next wave of growth.” 

For entrepreneurs eyeing the Arabic AI ecosystem to launch a business, Mansour shared three pieces of hard-earned advice. “First, fall in love with a regional problem, not a global trend," he said. "The most successful products in our region solve a challenge that is unique or particularly acute here. For us, it was the dialect barrier. Don't just build a localized version of a global product; find a deep, unmet need and build a solution for it from first principles.” 

Mansour continued by cautioning entrepreneurs against chasing fleeting AI trends, urging them instead to anchor their businesses in a defensible advantage—whether proprietary data, breakthrough technology, or exclusive partnerships—that rivals would find nearly impossible to replicate. “Finally, win a key market first before trying to scale everywhere," he added. "The MENA region is not monolithic. Once you have a strong foundation and a clear product-market fit in a major market, you have a much stronger playbook for scaling successfully across the rest of the region."

Pictured in the lead image is Intella's team. Image courtesy Intella.