Egyptian startup, Elves, secures $2 million funding for its mobile-based personal assistance service

Elves, an AI-powered concierge app based in Cairo, has secured $2 million in funding from Sawari Ventures and existing investors. This investment comes as the app continues to grow and adapt to the changing needs of consumers during the ongoing pandemic.

Founded in 2017 by Karim Elsahy and Abeer Elsisi, Elves offers a variety of on-demand services. These include online shopping, booking flights and hotels, paying bills, and customised requests. The app has also automated its grocery service, signing up more than 40 grocery partners and adding exclusive deals to attract more users.

The app, which started as a service on Facebook Messenger, has since evolved to its own dedicated app. Elves has seen a growth of over 500% in its user base in the last six months, with the revamped version of the app, launched earlier this year, accounting for over 90% of the total usage.

Despite the slow activity in travel, cinemas, and some other industries, Elves users have been ordering groceries, medicines, and electronics through the app. The onset of Covid-19 and Elves' ability to quickly adapt to changing consumer behavior and scale to meet the surge in demand has reaffirmed Sawari Ventures' belief in the model.

Wael Amin, Partner at Sawari Ventures, commented on the investment in Elves, stating, "Elves' unique combination of AI and human concierge capabilities gives it superior versatility and scalability over its competitors." He also mentioned that the company has doubled down on its initial investment in Elves.

In addition to the funding, Elves has appointed Dr. Mohamed El-Beltagy as the new CTO. Dr. El-Beltagy's team includes one of the leading PhD's in NLP, further enhancing Elves' AI capabilities.

The number of live concurrent users each human operator on Elves can handle has been raised, allowing the app to scale its human concierge services to meet the growing demand. Elves has also been generating "Alexa Skills" at a pace of tens of thousands a month, expanding its reach and convenience for users.

The total amount raised by Elves to date is $5 million, with most of the offline services offered by Elves available only in Egypt, while online services are available worldwide. Elves continues to demonstrate its ability to reuse previous user requests to serve similar live requests, providing a seamless and efficient user experience.