
Equator Raises $55 Million to Support African Climate Tech Startups
Equator, an African venture capital firm, has raised $55 million for its first fund aimed at supporting early-stage climate tech startups across the continent.
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Cairo-based HR tech startup Bluworks has raised $1 million in a seed funding round to support its expansion across Egypt and into the broader Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
The round was anchored by investors A15, Enza Capital and Beltone Venture Capital, with further backing from Acasia Ventures and a group of strategic angel investors.
Founded in 2022, Bluworks offers a digital platform that targets blue-collar workforce management, an area that remains heavily reliant on paper logs, spreadsheets and legacy systems.
The startup’s solution includes tools for employee scheduling, attendance tracking, payroll processing, real-time salary disbursement, and regulatory compliance specifically tailored to Egyptian labour rules.
In commenting on the investment, Bassem Raafat, Principal at A15, said the segment of blue-collar workforce management is “massive yet overlooked and still dependent on pen and paper, spreadsheets, or outdated software,” and praised Bluworks for its “high-engagement platform” that streamlines the full range of workforce operations.
Similarly, Abdelrahman Hassan of Enza Capital described frontline labour as the “backbone of African economies” and said Bluworks is enabling millions of frontline workers to be better managed, paid and empowered.
Bluworks will use the fresh capital for several strategic initiatives, including deepening its penetration into the Egyptian SME market, enhancing its product capabilities (including analytics/AI infrastructure), forging strategic partnerships and accelerating regional rollout.
CEO and co-founder Hussein Wahdan said that while Bluworks has proven its model in Egypt, the injection of funding positions the company to scale more rapidly both locally and regionally, with the same mission to give companies better tools for workforce management while improving outcomes for employees.
The move comes amid a push in the MENA region to digitize frontline operations and HR systems for non-office based workers, a segment often underserved by mainstream enterprise software.

Equator, an African venture capital firm, has raised $55 million for its first fund aimed at supporting early-stage climate tech startups across the continent.

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