News

Egypt’s Flat6Labs Picks 24 Startups For Growth Track Program

The initiative is known as StartMashreq, and welcomes companies from the FinTech, eCommerce and HealthTech sectors.

Published

3 years ago

September 7, 2023

Nour Nasir

egypt's flat6labs picks 24 startups for growth track program

StartMashreq

Flat6Labs, the Cairo-based venture capital company, has chosen 24 companies for its StartMashreq Growth Track program, which aims to boost early-stage startups in the Middle East and North Africa region.

The startups from Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq operate in sectors including FinTech, HealthTech, AgriTech, and eCommerce. In addition, five of the chosen companies were cofounded by female entrepreneurs.

Collectively, the winning startups generate annual recurring revenue of over $20 million and have raised nearly $40 million in funding, according to Flat6Labs. Perhaps most importantly, the 24 companies in the StartMashreq program have also generated around 700 job opportunities.

“We are confident that [the startups] have what it takes to succeed in their markets. Through our program, we will offer them tailored support and guidance to help them overcome their challenges and achieve their goals. We look forward to working with them over the next six months and beyond,” said Ragia Amr, program director of StartMashreq at Flat6Labs.

Started in June, StartMashreq will run until December 2024, giving the selected startups access to new markets plus allowing them to scale operations and increase their impact on their respective economies.

As for the program itself, StartMashreq will include workshops and mentorships by international experts, networking events, and roadshows.

Also Read: Saudi Arabia’s Gaming Sector Is Quickly Gathering Momentum

Since its launch in 2011, Flat6Labs has been a major player in the MENA region’s entrepreneurial scene, managing a number of seed funds whose assets exceed $95 million.

In February, Flat6Labs announced a $20 million startup seed fund in Saudi Arabia aimed at supporting entrepreneurs in the Kingdom by investing in early-stage startups in the technology and innovation sectors.

The selected startups are:

Lebanon

Compost Baladi: A social enterprise that provides waste management solutions.
Ecomz: An e-commerce platform that enables merchants to create online stores.
KamKalima: An edtech platform that helps Arabic teachers and students.
Moodfit: An online interior design service that connects clients with designers.
Presentail: An online gift delivery service that connects expats with local shops.
Purpl: A proptech platform that simplifies property management.
Shelvz: A retail intelligence platform that helps brands optimize their shelf presence.

Iraq

KESK: A fintech platform that provides digital banking services.
Lezzoo: A super app that offers delivery, e-commerce and payment services.
Midient/Padash: A cloud kitchen platform that enables food entrepreneurs to launch online brands.
Orderii: An online marketplace that connects customers with local service providers.
Toolmart: An e-commerce platform that sells tools and hardware products.

Jordan

Algebra Intelligence: A healthtech platform that provides AI-powered medical diagnosis.
Arab Therapy: An online platform that connects users with licensed therapists.
Dinarak: A fintech platform that offers mobile wallet and payment services.
Hello World Kids: An edtech platform that teaches coding to children.
InvoiceQ: A fintech platform that provides invoice financing solutions.
Jordilight: An energy tech company that produces solar-powered street lights.
Konn Technologies: A fintech company that offers blockchain-based solutions.
Little Thinking Minds: An edtech company that creates digital learning products for children.
Nestrom: An agritech company that provides farm management software.
Palmear: An e-commerce platform that sells handmade products from local artisans.
Repzo: A mobile CRM platform that helps sales teams manage their activities.
Shop4Me: An e-commerce platform that delivers groceries and other products.

News

ESET Bets On Specialized Security AI At 0.5% The Training Cost

ESET says NeoCortex can estimate an attacker’s next move, with a kill switch and human oversight built in to keep it from going rogue.

Published

5 days ago

November 4, 2026

Dana Saadeh

eset bets on specialized security ai at 0.5% the training cost

A sign-in anomaly, a suspicious process launch and an unusual connection may look harmless alone. Together, they can describe an intrusion that is hard for security to teams to piece together.

To solve that problem, ESET announced ESET NeoCortex on November 4, 2026: a specialized foundational AI model for cybersecurity. It powers ESET LiveCortex, available within the ESET PROTECT Platform, which connects fragmented security signals and turns them into actionable incidents.

Filtering is the main selling point, with LiveCortex processing billions of raw telemetry events daily, and just 0.00111% of them contributing to incidents presented to customers. The aim is less alert fatigue and more analyst time spent on threats that matter.

NeoCortex is built on world-model architecture, learning how digital environments behave and how events relate. ESET says that lets it reconstruct missing incident context, recognize similar past cases and estimate an attacker’s likely next step – what the company calls “minus-one-day defense,” a chance to intervene before the next stage unfolds. ESET points to Black October, the week leading up to October 25, 2026, when critical security issues affecting PHP, Linux, GitLab and other key systems demanded rapid, prioritized responses, as the kind of moment where that context matters.

ESET’s internal research also suggests a specialized model like NeoCortex can be trained at up to 200 times lower cost than a large general reasoning model, while delivering more accurate, defense-focused results. The company credits optimized training, a focus on cybersecurity vocabulary, lower computing requirements and privately owned hardware.

Also Read: Dubai Says Its Deepfake Detector Needs Just 7 Seconds Of Video

“AI is accelerating both cyberattacks and cyberdefenses. With ESET NeoCortex, we are applying our AI investment to develop specialized foundational cybersecurity intelligence that remains under our control and strengthens, rather than replaces, human expertise,” said Juraj Malcho, Chief Technology Officer at ESET.

As part of the design, NeoCortex forms part of a layered architecture combining specialized models, deterministic controls, correlation logic, validation, auditability and expert human oversight. Safeguards include restricted sandboxes, read-only tools, continuous monitoring, defined usage and token limits, a kill switch and human oversight of critical response decisions. The model is also developed and self-hosted on ESET’s own infrastructure, which the company says reduces exposure to shifts among third-party AI providers, including commercial and geopolitical ones.