The round was led by Saudi venture capital firm Khawarizmi Ventures, with participation from Camel Ventures, Acasia Ventures, and a group of angel investors.

bluworks was founded in 2022 as a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform specifically designed to manage the entire lifecycle of blue-collar employees. This includes automating HR and operational tasks to streamline processes and optimize costs for businesses in various sectors like retail, construction, and healthcare.

The company aims to become the go-to solution for companies seeking to improve blue-collar workforce management in the region.

“With so many HR softwares on the market, not one is built to manage blue-collar workers,” says Hussein Wahdan, co-founder of bluworks. “Since the process of managing this type of workforce is so manual, errors frequently occur, leading to penalties and deducted salaries with no oversight from the workers, causing them to leave and ultimately contributing to high turnover rates. 

Currently, companies can spend about 7-10 days just closing their payroll accounts, but with bluworks, this time can be cut down to one day – all while leveraging data and insights on their workforce.”

With thousands of blue-collar workers already on the platform and clients like Crave and Qahwa, bluworks is experiencing promising growth. The company plans to expand its reach across new industries and potentially enter international markets.

“We are excited about getting strategic investors on-board that can provide us with access to both local and regional markets, to which we are looking to expand,” says Farah Osman, co-founder of bluworks. 

“There is no shortage of industry use cases similar to Egypt around the world, and we are eager to tackle them with our innovative workforce management solutions.”

Investors in the funding round acknowledge the huge opportunity bluworks presents. “Egypt has one of the largest workforce populations in the MENA and Africa region; however, there are very few software solutions that are truly localized,” says Ameer Sherif, Venture Partner at Khawarizmi Ventures. 

“Like with many emerging markets, solutions to automate workforce management are still lacking. We believe that the bluworks team has the right mix of local understanding, and commercial and technical capability to lead this space in Egypt and later in other regional markets.”

“bluworks has identified a real pain point for employers and developed a compelling digital solution that focuses on a particular niche,” adds Aly El Shalakany, Managing Partner at Acasia Ventures. “Initial traction is very promising, and we are confident that bluworks will be able to scale this solution rapidly.”

With this fresh injection of capital, bluworks is prepared to enhance blue-collar workforce management in Egypt and potentially the wider region.

Online and offline payment gateway, FlexPay, has built a process which enables interest-free targeted savings for merchants and customers in Africa, who have the freedom to choose how and when to pay for high-value goods and services. 

Through FlexPay, shoppers can purchase goods and pay in instalments, increasing flexibility and spending power. Also, merchants can choose to integrate FlexPay as a checkout option online, or offer offline in-store flexibility.

“We are thrilled to have The Cairo Angels as investors as we plan to grow and scale to more markets in Africa. As Africa’s first merchant-embedded saving-based purchase experience that rewards customers for saving — Save Now, Buy Later — we aim to solve the un-affordability gap for the large under-banked African population without subjecting them to the debt trap,” Richard Machomba, Founder and CEO of FlexPay, said.

“FlexPay is our first investment in Africa outside of Egypt. Richard and Johnson are two stellar founders who have built an amazing FinTech platform that flips BNPL on its head by harnessing the power of saving and digitizing the deep-rooted culture of ‘layway’. We will be supporting FlexPay with their regional expansion plans in other key African markets, including Nigeria and Egypt,” noted Aly El Shalakany, CEO of the Cairo Angels Syndicate Fund.

The Cairo Angels is Egypt’s first formal angel investment network; investing in and supporting early-stage startups in Egypt and across the MENA region. Established in 2012, Cairo Angels convenes regular investment meetings to review pre-selected potential investees that meet the Cairo Angels investment criteria. 

While angels make their own investment decisions, Cairo Angels facilitate due diligence for opportunities that receive interest from investors, negotiate terms and finalize deal closing.

Post-investment, the Cairo Angels can also provide portfolio management services for its investors. Angels invest their capital in return for a minority equity stake in the business and collectively make investments that range between 250,000 to 2 million Egyptian Pounds per Company. Cairo Angels have invested $2.8 Million in 28 startups across six cities.