Shahbander weaves online network for Egyptian textile makers

Less than a year after graduating from the AUC Venture Labs accelerator, Egyptian startup Shahbander is looking to take on the world.

Siblings Fatma, Mahmoud and Mohamed El Esnawy founded the startup in 2013 to help modernize the textile industry. They wanted to connect, via a website, factories with clients who wish to buy finished products.

The site is still in prototype-mode, but Fatma says they’re four months from launching the real thing and after that they’ll be looking to link their 5,000 registered factories with the world – where exactly they didn’t want to say yet but Europe is on their radar.

A raw market, untouched by tech

For millenia Egypt has been known for its textiles, and the statistics bear out how important they still are to the economy.

Egyptian exports hit a total of $8 billion during the first five months of 2015 with $379.3 million coming were from the textile sector, according to theMinistry of Foreign Trade and Industry. The Egyptian government has set a target to increase textile exports to $2 billion, from $1 billion in 2014.

But despite it being one of the most promising sectors in Egypt, it remains untapped by technology.

Original article by Sara Aggour

Continue reading at Wamda:

Shahbander weaves online network for Egyptian textile makers