• Egypt’s sharp currency depreciation has turned its tech engineers into globally competitive assets for US, European and Gulf firms seeking cost-efficient innovation hubs.

• Funding rebounded in 2025, but capital is flowing into fewer, larger deals, favouring deep tech, export-oriented models and industrial-grade engineering.

• The country is shifting from a consumer tech market to a talent-driven production base embedded in global technology supply chains.

Egypt is quietly becoming one of the most contested talent pools in the global technology industry. As repeated currency devaluations reshape the country’s economy, the centre of gravity has shifted away from consumer markets toward engineering talent. For international companies, Egypt is no longer primarily a market to sell into, but a place to build, design and develop technology at scale.

The financial data points to a rebound in activity, albeit under new conditions. Between January and May 2025, Egyptian startups raised $228 million in equity and debt financing, more than double the amount recorded during the same period in 2024. The recovery continued in the second half of the year, with venture capital funding rising 31% year on year compared with the second half of 2024, reaching approximately $524 million across 71 transactions. However, this growth was driven by fewer but larger deals, signalling a more selective investment environment.

Two transactions illustrate this shift. In May 2025, proptech company Nawy raised $75 million, combining a Series A round of roughly $52 million with $23 million in debt, one of the largest fundraising rounds in the country that year. In November, InfiniLink, a Cairo-based semiconductor and silicon photonics startup, was acquired by GlobalFoundries, a US chip manufacturing group. The deal highlighted growing international interest in Egypt’s advanced engineering capabilities rather than its consumer-facing technology sector.

Underlying these developments is the sharp depreciation of the Egyptian pound. Over the past three years, the currency has lost roughly half of its value against the euro, dramatically reducing labour costs when measured in foreign currencies. For global technology firms, this has made Egyptian engineers significantly cheaper than their European counterparts while maintaining comparable technical skills in fields such as software engineering, semiconductors and applied research.

As a result, business models across the ecosystem are changing. Startups increasingly prioritise export-oriented products, dollar-denominated revenues and enterprise clients outside Egypt. The domestic market, constrained by inflation and weakened purchasing power, plays a secondary role, while engineering teams focus on building solutions for regional and global customers.

Public institutions have begun to reflect this shift in their messaging. Government-backed entrepreneurship bodies and regulators increasingly frame technology as a strategic export sector. Engineering, deep tech and software services are promoted as pillars of economic resilience, alongside efforts to ease capital repatriation and attract long-term foreign investment.

The composition of investors has also evolved. Capital from Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, now dominates large funding rounds, while Western investors tend to focus on acquisition targets and scalable engineering platforms. This has reinforced the trend toward consolidation rather than broad-based expansion of startups.

Yet risks remain. Further currency instability could erode local purchasing power and accelerate the migration of skilled engineers to higher-paying markets in Europe or the Gulf. At the same time, global demand for technical talent continues to rise, intensifying competition for Egypt’s workforce. For multinational companies, however, the country increasingly represents a strategic node: a large, proximate and cost-efficient engineering base embedded in global technology and industrial value chains.

Idriss Linge