The second edition of LaunchPad Expo gathered founders, service providers, and operators in Cairo, highlighting a clear shift in Egypt’s startup and SME ecosystem from a pure fundraising focus to a deeper emphasis on operational efficiency, business resilience, and sustainable growth.
Organized by The Strategic Co., an Egypt-based business platform, the event took place at The GrEEK Campus in Downtown Cairo on May 15 and 16, 2026. It attracted over 3,000 attendees, 60 exhibitors, and 40 speakers to connect businesses with essential operational partners.
Quick Facts
- Over 3,000 registered attendees participated
- Featured 60+ exhibitors and 20 sponsors
- Connected SMEs with key service providers
- Hosted more than 40 expert speakers
From Pitch Decks to Payments
As Egypt’s startup landscape matures, founders are increasingly turning their attention from venture capital and visibility to the fundamentals of building a profitable business. LaunchPad Expo directly addressed this evolution.
Unlike typical pitch-focused events, the platform centered on the day-to-day operational decisions that define a company’s growth trajectory. Sessions and exhibitors covered critical areas like payment infrastructure, legal services, recruitment, cloud systems, and marketing, providing practical solutions for scaling businesses.
Connecting a Fragmented Ecosystem
The event’s organizers emphasized their mission to consolidate a fragmented support network for small and medium-sized enterprises.
“The growth of LaunchPad Expo from Edition 1 to Edition 2 reflects a broader market shift toward a more connected SME support ecosystem,” said Karim Saber, Co-Founder and CEO at The Strategic Co. “We believe platforms like LaunchPad can play a role in accelerating that consolidation, enabling businesses to move from searching to solving.”
This mission is driven by a recognized gap in the market, where businesses often struggle to find the right operational partners at the right time.
“Egyptian SMEs do not lack ambition. What many of them lack is efficient access to the right partners at the right stage of growth,” noted Ahmed Elgarem, Co-Founder and CMO at The Strategic Co. “We built LaunchPad Expo around that gap. Our mission is to bring the ecosystem into one place in a way that creates real business outcomes, not just visibility.”
Building Egypt’s SME Support Infrastructure
The event’s growth points to increasing demand for structured SME support as businesses face tighter operating conditions and pressure to optimize costs.
Powered by Unlock, the expo’s second edition expanded its roster of partners, including Paymob, Wuzzuf, Recruitera, Amenli, Invia, Almentor Business, and Badran Law Firm.
AMAN Holding served as the Official Financial Partner, showcasing its financial solutions for SMEs. Ahmed Labib, the company’s Director of SMEs, joined a panel on business growth, highlighting the critical role of financial infrastructure in supporting sustainable scaling.
Discussions at the event’s content platform, LaunchPad Talks, covered topics ranging from AI adoption and ROI to investor readiness, talent retention, and organic demand generation, reinforcing the focus on practical business building.
About LaunchPad Expo
LaunchPad Expo is a B2B exhibition organized by The Strategic Co. in Egypt. It is designed to connect startups and SMEs with essential service providers across payments, legal, HR, technology, marketing, and business infrastructure. The event focuses on facilitating operational efficiency and sustainable growth for businesses in the Egyptian ecosystem.
Source: Waya
