Tactful AI, an Egyptian startup that sells AI agents for customer service, has a new investor with a long telecoms résumé. Hatem Dowidar, who ran the Abu Dhabi-based telecoms group e& as group CEO until March 2026, has invested in the company as part of an extension to its pre-Series A round, Disrupt Africa reported on 20 October.
The amount was not disclosed. The signal is still worth reading: a former operator chief, who spent years buying customer-service systems for millions of subscribers, has put his own money into a product built to replace a large part of that work.
What Tactful AI does
Tactful builds what it calls an agentic customer-experience (CX) platform. In plain terms, it gives a business one dashboard to manage conversations with customers across channels, hand routine requests to AI agents, and analyse how those conversations go.
The company says it is about to release a new version of the product that lets large companies build and change their own end-to-end customer-service workflows in-house. According to Tactful, that cuts development cycles "from months to hours", while keeping a human sign-off at each step. That last point matters for banks, telecoms and retailers, which want automation but cannot afford an agent that makes promises to customers on its own.
The founders and an unusual ownership history
Tactful was founded by Mohamed Elmasry, Mohammad Hassan and Sherif Khairallah. Its path has not been a straight line. Dstny, a European company that makes interactive communication tools, acquired Tactful in 2022. The founders bought the business back in July 2025.
Buy-backs like this are rare in African tech. They usually happen when a product fits poorly inside a larger group, and the founders believe they can grow it faster on their own. The growth figures since then suggest the bet is working so far.
Tactful AI growth figures since January 2025
The company shared these numbers with Disrupt Africa:
- Annual recurring revenue (ARR): up 11.7 times since January 2025.
- Customer conversations processed each month: up 32-fold over the same period.
- Clients named: Elaraby Group, Raneen, 2B, Lucky One, Erada Finance and Simplex.
Tactful did not disclose its absolute revenue or conversation volume, so the multiples describe direction and speed rather than size. A company growing from a small base can post large multiples quickly. The client list, which mixes electronics and appliance retail with consumer finance, does show the product working in sectors that handle heavy volumes of routine customer questions.
Who Hatem Dowidar is
Dowidar brings more than 25 years in telecoms and technology. He joined e& as chief operating officer in 2015 and served as group CEO from 2020 until March 2026. Before that, he spent 16 years at Vodafone, including a spell as CEO of Vodafone Egypt.
That background makes him a useful investor for a customer-service company. Telecom operators are some of the largest buyers of contact-centre technology in the Middle East and Africa, and Dowidar knows how those buying decisions are made.
"Tactful has successfully deployed this infrastructure in live production environments," Dowidar said, adding that the team "has everything it takes to set the industry benchmark."
Elmasry said Dowidar's "support and trust come at a pivotal moment" as Tactful takes what he called its "boldest step yet."
How this round fits the funding picture
The Dowidar investment extends a pre-Series A round. In February 2026, Tactful raised US$1 million in that round, co-led by Foras AI and M Empire. The company now plans to raise a Series A in 2027.
Angel investment from senior operators has become a common bridge for African AI startups between seed and Series A. Institutional investors are asking harder questions about AI companies whose products can be copied cheaply, a debate we covered in whether African VCs will still back startups that AI prompts can rebuild. A named industry backer with buying experience helps answer that question for a CX company: it suggests customers, not just models, are the moat.
What to watch
- The new product release. Whether enterprises really build their own workflows in hours, and how often humans have to step in.
- Telecom clients. With Dowidar on board, a deal with a large operator in Egypt or the Gulf would be a strong signal.
- Disclosed numbers. A Series A in 2027 will likely require Tactful to share absolute revenue, which will show how large the business has become.
For now, Tactful is a small but fast-growing example of an African AI company selling into enterprise, with founders who took their company back and an investor who has sat on the buyer's side of the table.
Source: Disrupt Africa, 20 October 2026.
