Omar Sakr

After a Teaching’s Assistant position at the German University in Cairo, Dr. Omar Sakr decided to move to even bigger things and complete his PhD studies in Geneva, Switzerland. An idea began to take shape at that time, Omar wanted to start a state-of-the-art private research facility in Egypt. 

“Nawah” was the name Omar had given to his yet-to-see-the-light idea. When asked about the reference to the name, Omar said, “Nawah is the nucleus of a cell, an atom, among others and a reference from the Arabic name meaning ‘genesis’”.

After acquiring an entourage of star scientists, an old friend from university, and a world-class facility, Nawah was gaining momentum. The tricky part was that Omar was living in Switzerland at the time, and it was hard to run a startup across the globe. The solution was for Omar to spend the weekdays in Geneva, and return to Egypt discretely on the weekends to work on Nawah. This lasted an entire year.

In 2015, Nawah was launched as the first private biomedical research facility in Egypt. The brainchild that started with 4 scientists and a small facility, to date, has gathered over 130 scientists working in 32 labs in multiple countries. 

Funding, however, was a tricky one. Omar explained how being a pioneering startup in a pioneering industry made positioning Nawah hard for investors. “The first round was raised by family and friends, and that got the ball rolling.” He goes on to add, “Between Acasia Ventures and Acasia Angels, the two have invested 3 times with us. Their funds always came at crucial times and made a big difference in keeping us going”. When asked about what made Nawah a go-to, Mohamed Hussein, Senior Investment Associate at Acasia Ventures, said “Nawah possess a robust team and a clear vision for growth. We at Acasia Venture appreciate such diligence and commitment to hard work, which has made this partnership a success. 

Over time, Nawah evolved from being a purely B2C enterprise, and began targeting the pharmaceutical sector, food and beverage, and agriculture sector. Along with the cloud-based system that came in handy during Covid-19 because it allows basically anyone from home or abroad to analyse their samples. This move was regarded as such a success that it now comprises 80% of the project’s revenue stream.      

Nawah’s ambitions does not only stop in Egypt. Work is well underway for the building of a mega lab in Saudi Arabia, which will serve the entire MENA region. Eyes also turn to Africa, where Nawah plans to build 5 labs that will serve the whole of Africa. Whatever the future holds for Nawah, it is safe to say it will be good things as the organization turns from a local medical research hub into a regional powerhouse that will impact the lives of millions.