Wasla is an Egyptian seed-stage startup in the Tech industry. They’re the first provider of free mobile internet in Africa that was co-founded by Serag Meneassy, Taymour Sabry, and Mahmoud El Said. Meneassy and Sabry were previous Rocket Internet entrepreneurs, while El Said is an investment banker.

Launched in late 2018, Wasla managed in its current magnificent seed-stage to raise $1 million (you read that right) in funding by Egypt Ventures, Glint Ventures, and Ebtikar for Financial Investments.

Wasla enables users to subsidize their data costs through its ad-sponsored mobile browser. It works as follows: Users earn points on the Wasla Browser to surf the web, and the points can then be used to upgrade their prepaid telephone lines or pay their bills in the case where they have a postpaid connection.

“This initial traction allowed Wasla to prove product-market fit and the growing need for affordable mobile internet,” They commented on the fact that since its launch, Wasla has won over 100,000 customers without any marketing efforts to be mentioned.

The team also added new features to their app, such as the WaslaFeed. It’s a “localized content aggregator that has both a standalone website which has a regional audience and an API that serves personalized content to Wasla Browser users through the app,” they shared.

Wasla plans to utilize their investment in a go-to-market strategy they’re applying, welcoming new members to their team, and developing new product verticals that are focused on financial inclusion.

The team expressed its enthusiasm about the investment by sharing “We are very happy to have reached this milestone, we couldn’t have achieved it if it wasn’t for the hard work and excitement put forward by our team. Now, we start to rapidly scale our user base while further developing our two new product verticals which shall be introduced during 2020.”