In March 2025, Ahmed Shaaban, the co-founder of Egyptian CNC machinery maker Simplex, logged on to social media to respond to a wave of criticism. His company had just announced plans to build a $13m factory in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and some Egyptians accused him of abandoning his home market. His reply was blunt: the business was not leaving Egypt, but it had been waiting more than nine months for the government to approve a plot of land next to its existing factory. “We still aspire to expand further in Egypt,” he wrote, “but is there anyone responding? I truly hope so, God willing.”

Sixteen months later, on a hot July day in 2026, Egypt’s finance minister, Ahmed Kouchouk, cut the ribbon on Simplex’s second manufacturing facility in 10th of Ramadan City, a 40,000 square metre plant built with an investment of $50m. Foundation stone was laid the same day for a third factory. The contrast between Shaaban’s public exasperation and the ministerial ceremony underscores the tension at the heart of Egypt’s industrial ambitions: a young, export-oriented technology company forced to take its grievance online to be heard, and a government that eventually delivered a large-scale expansion — though at a pace that almost pushed the company elsewhere.

Simplex was founded in 2013 by Shaaban and Mohamed Mansour, two engineers who turned a graduation project into a business designing, assembling and manufacturing Computer Numerical Control machines, the precision tools that cut, shape and finish materials in modern factories. By the time of the 2026 inauguration, the company had exported to 34 countries, built a client base of more than 4,500 customers and recorded cumulative sales in excess of $100m. Its workforce had grown to more than 400 people.

Yet this steady ascent collided with the realities of Egypt’s business environment. When Simplex sought land adjacent to its first factory — the exact location of which the company has not publicly disclosed — to expand capacity, it waited. According to Shaaban, the request stalled for more than nine months without a resolution. “It’s as if we are stuck in the same place with no progress or any new developments,” he wrote in the March 2025 post.

The frustration was magnified by the speed the company encountered elsewhere. In January 2025, Simplex signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia’s National Industrial Development Center for a 20,000 square metre plant in Riyadh. Shaaban described a process that moved at a different tempo entirely. “In Saudi Arabia, we agreed upon, obtained an industrial registration, and chose the land all within fifteen minutes while sitting there,” he said. “Everything was accessible and available.” The Riyadh factory, Simplex’s first outside Egypt, was expected to begin operations in the first quarter of 2026, funded by a $13m investment that aligns with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 industrial localisation programme.

Shaaban’s March outburst — and the media coverage it triggered — laid bare a dilemma facing Egyptian start-ups that have scaled beyond the early stage. Cairo has regularly ranked among Africa’s top recipients of venture capital, attracting more than $400m in tech funding in 2024, according to data from The Big Deal. But entrepreneurs have long complained about fragmented regulation, currency volatility and bureaucratic delays that push founders to consider basing operations in Gulf states. Several Egyptian-born companies, from AI firm Widebot to social commerce platform Taager and mobility group Swvl, have shifted their geographic centre of gravity towards Riyadh or Dubai in recent years.

Simplex did not close its Egyptian operations — Shaaban explicitly denied any such intention — but the company made clear that expansion capital would go where it could be deployed quickly. The Riyadh project was announced as a “strategic centre for exporting the company’s products” by co-founder Mohamed Mansour, signalling that it was not merely a market-access play but a hedge against the unpredictability of scaling at home.

Whether the public complaint directly unlocked the land request is impossible to verify. Simplex’s second Egyptian plant is a site twice the size of the Saudi facility, with $50m of investment. Alongside the launch, the company signed new partnership and agency agreements in Jordan and Kuwait and stated that 15 per cent of production is currently exported, with plans to raise that share. The company said the expansion would create more than 1,000 direct jobs and over 10,000 indirect jobs.

At the ribbon-cutting, Shaaban struck a different tone. “This celebration stands as a testament to what Egyptian youth can accomplish when given the opportunity and support,” he said. He then affixed a “Proudly Made in Egypt” badge to a newly unveiled machine, a gesture that — read alongside his earlier words — carried the weight of a demand answered, if belatedly.

Simplex now operates with a dual manufacturing footprint: a Saudi plant designed to serve regional export markets, and a scaled Egyptian base where the bulk of its production and workforce remain. Shaaban’s March 2025 question — “Is anyone responding?” — appears, at least for his company, to have been met with concrete action. Whether that signals a broader willingness by the Egyptian state to match the administrative ease offered by competitors across the Red Sea remains an open question.