Egyptian start-up 1Trolley, is among the winners of the first startup Innovation Challenge initiated by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to acknowledge those affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

1Trolley is an on-demand service that purchases pick up, and delivers convenient goods that are ordered from one’s neighborhood stores through the mobile app. The platform drives the digitization of its partners from demand generation to last-mile experience, enabling bullet delivery of products & instant access to various services.

Judges had to choose between 226 participants from 30 countries where the Bank invests. The competition targeted high-potential scalable start-ups that have innovated their business models in response to the coronavirus pandemic and was organized entirely online.

The winners share among themselves $500,000 of mixed cash reimbursement and advisory vouchers within the framework of the Star Venture program including business diagnostics as well as tailored one-on-one technical advisory support, mentoring, and access to international investors.

Other winners were Otsimo from Turkey, an education platform for children with special needs, Fazla Gıda from Turkey, a surplus management platform that helps to mark products for expiry, Plant an app from Romania, a low-code development platform that accelerates delivery of software systems by a factor of up to 40 times and EMBIO Diagnostics Ltd from Cyprus, a multi-use handheld chemical analyzer that within minutes can accurately detect harmful chemicals in food.

The EBRD has been promoting and supporting start-ups in its countries of operations for over 25 years through advisory and investment vehicles including the Star Venture Programme, the Early-Stage Innovation Facility and the Venture Capital Investment Programme. In 2020, EBRD announced that would invest $50 million in Egyptian SMEs.

The Start-up Innovation Challenge was supported by donor funds provided by the Republic of Korea, and in Egypt by the EBRD Small Business Impact Fund (Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the TaiwanBusiness – EBRD Technical Cooperation Fund and the United States).