One of Africa’s most successful founders is back with a new AI startup and already raised $9M

In 2023, co-founders Karim Jouini and Jihed Othmani sold their expense management startup Expensya to Swedish procurement software firm Medius in what is widely considered to be one of the largest acquisitions of an African startup. Some sources say the sum was just over $120 million, although deal terms were not disclosed. Success achieved, both founders swore off entrepreneurship, never intending to do another startup again and Jouini became a CTO role in the merged software company, with other acquisitions spanning three continents. But the pull of a new technological wave – generative AI – and the thought that they may be able to build something even bigger with them have drawn them back in. The two have now co-founded Thunder Code, a generative AI-powered software testing platform, which has already secured $9 million in seed funding, they told TechCrunch. “It’s pretty crazy because we promised not to do another company because Expensya was too hard,” Jouini said. “But I think ... Read full article.