Intella, the leading provider of dialectal Arabic speech intelligence, has announced the successful close of a $12.5 million oversubscribed Series A funding round, marking a major milestone in its mission to revolutionize AI for the Arabic-speaking world. The round was led by Prosus Ventures, with participation from 500 Global, Wa’ed Ventures, Hala Ventures, Idrisi Ventures, and HearstLab, the investment arm of Hearst Corporation.
Founded in 2021 by CEO Nour Taher and CTO Omar Mansour, Intella has rapidly emerged as a market leader in Arabic speech technology. The company offers enterprise-grade solutions including speech-to-text transcription, voice analytics, and AI-powered customer engagement tools, all tailored to over 25 Arabic dialects. Its proprietary models have achieved a world-leading accuracy rate of 95.73%, enabling businesses to deliver localized, human-like conversations at scale.
Nour Taher, Co-founder and CEO, commented:
From day one, our vision has been to bridge the gap between global AI advancements and the Arabic-speaking world. This funding validates the technology we’ve built and the leadership position we’ve earned. With Prosus’s support, we’re accelerating our mission to help enterprises transform customer conversations into strategic assets.
The newly raised funds will be strategically deployed to:
- Advance R&D: Deepen investment in dialectal AI to push the boundaries of Arabic language understanding.
- Expand Product Offerings: Launch new conversational AI agents, including Ziila, designed for multi-turn dialogue and contextual comprehension.
- Scale Regional Operations: Grow go-to-market teams in Egypt and Saudi Arabia to meet rising demand across finance, telecom, and government sectors.
- Enhance Market Penetration: Invest in marketing and sales to strengthen Intella’s footprint in Morocco, North Africa, and the broader MENA region.
Omar Mansour, Co-founder and CTO, added:
Our models already set the benchmark for Arabic accuracy. Now, we’re focused on building truly intelligent, Arabic-first conversational agents that redefine enterprise engagement.
Arabic is one of the most spoken languages globally, yet it presents unique challenges for AI due to its fragmented dialectal structure. Modern Standard Arabic is rarely used in daily speech, with over 25 primary dialects and countless sub-dialects across regions. Intella’s localized, data-driven approach positions it as the foundational intelligence layer for Arabic voice and text applications.
Intella supports a rapidly growing portfolio of enterprise clients across MENA, including sectors such as finance, telecommunications, and government. The company more than doubled its revenue in 2024 and is on track for 7x growth in 2025. With this round, Intella’s total funding now exceeds $16.9 million.
Robin Voogd, Head of Middle East Investments at Prosus Ventures, stated:
Arabic AI models have historically underperformed due to complex phonetics and limited dialect-specific data. Intella is changing that. We’re proud to back a company building AI locally for the Arabic-speaking world.
Demonstrating its commercial strength, Intella recently launched Ziila, its Arabic-born digital human, in partnership with Jumia, Africa’s largest e-commerce platform. Ziila powers a new voice-ordering feature, showcasing its ability to navigate complex dialects in real-world environments.
With this funding, Intella is poised to solidify its leadership in Arabic AI and expand its technological edge. The company’s roadmap includes:
- Integrating Ziila with intellaCX, its analytics platform, to offer a full-stack solution for voice-based customer experiences.
- Accelerating regional expansion to meet surging demand across MENA.
- Continuing innovation in Arabic-first AI to widen its competitive gap globally.
