For the 4th year in a row RiseUp Summit is happening. Held on December 1, 2, 3 at the Greek  Campus and AUC Tahrir Square Campus, this year’s event comes with a twist: HIPOs.

“We’re piloting a new program to showcase the best of MENA”, says Dalia Kamar, the summit’s manager.

According to the RiseUp team, HIPOs which stands for High Potential Startups, are companies who have big chances of becoming the unicorns of the near future, and they deserve as much celebration as any unicorn.

The selection criteria for these startups was based on multiple factors including innovation, disruption, size of raised capital, market size, customer base, scalability, culture and team size.

This year’s RiseUp MENA HIPOs have collectively raised more than 159 million dollars in investment. At the event, they will be able to benefit from the right connections through one on one meetings with mentors, experts, consultants, lawyers, government entities and media.

In addition to ensuring the right ambiance for funding opportunities by attending panels featuring accelerators and VCs, including Techstars, 500 startups, YC, HP ventures, Kauffman fellows, Wamda Capital, QSTP, Oasis 500, A16z and more.

RiseUp will also focus on how to use innovation to improve human experience (HX), and this subject will be tackled through three tracks: Tech (#HackHX), Creative (#DriveHX) and Capital (#RaiseHX).

“Everything boils down to human experience. It’s at the heart of everything we do. Our purpose at RiseUp Summit 2017 is to shine the spotlight on how innovation and entrepreneurship can be used to improve human experience (HX). We believe that the most disruptive and impactful solutions to our shared challenges are found in the spaces where creativity, capital, and technology meet,” said Kamar.

The tracks will materialize in different formats: talks, fireside chats, panels and workshops.

The summit is expecting to host 150 startups exhibiting over the course of the three days, 50 startups pitching, 150 speakers participating, 200 investors, and over 5,000 attendees.

Top speakers on technology, creativity, and investment will be joining, such as Sara Heck, Head of External Affairs for Stripe & Stripe Atlas, Christopher Schroeder, investor and author of Startup Rising, Mai Medhat, co-founder & CEO at Eventtus, Brian Collins co-founder of Collins, and Dana Horska, Associate Investments Manager at Twofour54.

“RiseUp Summit is the flagship entrepreneurship event of the MENA region. This year we’re switching our focus from challenges in the region to opportunities that can turn into successful businesses with strong growth potential”, added Kamar.

Meet RiseUp’s 20 selected HIPOs:

PayTabs, a leading global online payment solutions company providing buyers and sellers an advanced technology to pay and get paid. Paytabs empowers businesses with a world of payment solutions.
Country: KSA
Founded: 2014
Total Investments: 20M

Anghami, the number 1 Music platform in MENA region with the largest catalog comprising of more than 22 million songs for more than 57 million users.
Country: Lebanon
Founded: 2011
Total Investments: 14.25M

scriptr.io, a powerful cloud-based or on-premise IoT application development platform that allows developers and integrators to build elegant IoT applications that benefit from cloud scalability and JavaScript simplicity.
Country: Lebanon
Founded: 2015
Total Investments: 9M.

Lamsa, a digital children’s platform (application) that provides edutainment-based Arabic content for children aged 3-8.
Country: KSA
Founded: 2012
Total Investments: 500K

Bayzat, a technology company that provides insurance and HR solutions.
Country: UAE
Founded: 2011
Total Investments: 7.6M.

BulkWhiz.com, the first bulk grocery ecommerce platform in the region, powered by home grown artificial intelligence.
Country: UAE
Founded: 2017
Total Investments: 1M

Fetchr, the next generation of delivery companies that is disrupting logistics by solving the problem of no addresses in emerging markets.
Country: UAE
Founded: 2012
Total Investments: 52M

Mumzworld, the leading e-commerce site in the Middle East, dedicated to everything mother, baby and child. Country: UAE Founded: 2011
Total Investments: Undisclosed

Reserveout, an online and mobile restaurant reservations platform, that allows customers to book a table instantly, earn reward points and restaurants to manage their reservation and promote offers.
Country: UAE
Founded: 2012
Total Investments: 5.4M.

The Luxury Closet, an ecommerce platform featuring luxury products. They are building a large online platform full of authentic preloved luxury items from global designer brands to rare vintage finds.
Country: UAE
Founded: 2012
Total Investments: 11.6M

Kharabeesh, a digital entertainment company producing dynamic content and developing technologies for the next digital creators.
Country: Jordan
Founded: 2008
Total Investments: 5M

liwwa, Inc., an online lender that aims to provide trade and assetfinance to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) based inJordan and the UAE.
Country: Jordan
Founded: 2013
Total Investments: 4.8M

Avelabs, a supplier for the automotive software industry. Avelabs is an Original Equipments Manufacturer (OEM) for Jaguar, BMW, Chrysler, Land Rover, GM and others.
Country: Egypt
Founded: 2012

Crowd Analyzer, an Arabic-focused social media listening tool. It features sentiment scores, dialect detection, and gender and business accounts identification.
Country: Egypt
Founded: 2013
Total Investments: 490K

elmenus, a platform that combines a social, visual and personalized experience to help people discover and order the food they want.
Country: Egypt
Founded: 2011
Total Investments: 1.5M

Elves, lets users find, book, buy, and get things delivered to them.  
Country: Egypt
Founded: 2016
Total Investments: Closing deal (will announce at RiseUp)

Eventtus, an event engagement platform which started in Egypt and went global achieving more than 91% engagement rate on average.
Country: Egypt
Founded: 2011
otal Investments: 2.6M

Instabug is a platform for beta testing, user engagement, and crash reporting. It gathers feedback from beta testers and allow clients to have live conversations with them.
Country: Egypt
Founded: 2013
Total Investments: 2.2M

Si-Ware Systems, an independent fabless semiconductor company that is fostering silicon innovation. SWS has two main businesses: ASIC Solutions and Optical MEMS Technology.
Country: Egypt
Founded: 2013 (Pivot)
Total Investments: 10M

Vezeeta, a digital healthcare platform in MENA. It focuses on the shift to automated physician, clinic and hospital bookings through bridging the gap between patients, doctors and the healthcare industry.
Country: Egypt
Founded: 2011
Total Investments: 11.5M