GrowthLabs, an Egyptian company that runs startup support programmes, has acquired Startup Gate, an Egyptian online platform that connects founders with investors, mentors and service providers. The deal was reported by Wamda on 18 May 2026.
GrowthLabs paid EGP 35 million (about $657,000). The reports did not say whether the price was settled in cash, shares or a mix. The transaction was arranged by M-Empire, an investment group that had backed Startup Gate at seed stage.
Startup Gate will be combined with Catalyst OS, the software GrowthLabs sells to incubators, accelerators and other entrepreneurship programmes. The companies said the result would be a single platform covering startups from early discovery through to investment readiness.
What Startup Gate built
Startup Gate is a hub where founders can find opportunities, meet investors and mentors, and look for service providers and funding. It was founded by Emmy Tawfik and first launched under Aria Ventures before it was spun out as a separate company with seed backing from M-Empire.
Under GrowthLabs, the merged service is meant to cover the full life of a young company: finding opportunities, networking and raising money on the Startup Gate side, and incubation, acceleration and corporate innovation programmes on the Catalyst OS side. The two companies described the result as the first unified digital infrastructure for innovation and startup support in the Middle East and North Africa, a claim the reports did not test.
Tawfik said the platform had been built and grown over about a year before the sale. The reports did not give user numbers, revenue or the size of the seed investment. Tawfik already holds the role of chief operating officer at GrowthLabs Holding, so the founder of the acquired platform sits inside the buyer's leadership team.
“This is not a new direction; it’s the natural scale of what we set out to build.”
Why GrowthLabs is buying
GrowthLabs, founded by its chief executive Islam Mohamed, says it has run more than 60 international programmes and supported over 5,000 startups in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Pakistan and South America. Its Catalyst OS product lets incubators, accelerators and programme operators manage their initiatives and track results.
By adding Startup Gate's network to that software, GrowthLabs said it could offer founders a path from company registration to investment readiness, with real-time data on each stage. It said the combined platform is also aimed at corporates running innovation programmes, universities, angel investors and venture capital firms, and that it wants to work with governments on digital transformation and entrepreneurship policy.
Mohamed said the company was building a unified digital infrastructure for everyone in the startup ecosystem and that joining GrowthLabs' technology with Startup Gate's network would let it offer data-driven services to government and private sector partners.
M-Empire's role
M-Empire both backed Startup Gate and arranged its sale, which it presented as part of an effort to consolidate innovation infrastructure in the Middle East and North Africa. Maged Ghoneima, co-founder and managing partner of M-Empire, said the firm's portfolio now spans more than 200 startups worldwide and that a single digital infrastructure was needed to prepare startups for investment at scale.
Ghoneima described the deal as a move to reduce fragmentation in the regional startup market by linking the discovery of promising companies with execution based on data.
Expansion plans
GrowthLabs said it plans to enter five new countries across the Gulf and Africa by the end of 2026. Its 2026 plans also include seven flagship corporate innovation programmes and what it called the first cross-border entrepreneurial community in the Middle East and North Africa, intended to move investment opportunities and talent between markets.
Mohamed said that making the environment for startups more transparent and supportive would help create jobs, attract investment and support economic growth, and that the aim was an operating system that follows startups from inception to expansion.
The companies did not say how many staff would move across or whether Startup Gate would keep its own brand once it is merged into the GrowthLabs platform.
