Hargeisa Startups to Watch in 2027: Verified Companies in Mobility, Travel, E-commerce, Education and Energy
Hargeisa is the capital of Somaliland, a self-declared state that is internationally recognised as part of Somalia. Its startup scene is small, and most young companies there solve everyday problems: getting a ride or a meal delivered, booking a hotel, shopping online, learning to read and keeping the lights on. The 2026 version of this article listed ten Hargeisa startups with impressive figures. When we checked them, we could not find a single one: no website, no registry entry, no press coverage. For this 2027 edition we started again. In October and November 2026 we checked each company on its own website to confirm that it exists, that it is based in Hargeisa and that it still operates. That leaves five companies, plus the hubs and funds that support founders in the city. We did not pad the list. What happened to the old names is explained near the end.
Quick answer: the Hargeisa startups to watch in 2027 are Dhaweeye (a super app for rides, food and deliveries), Soobooking (hotel and apartment booking across Somali-speaking regions), Muraadso (e-commerce with physical stores, now rebuilding its online shop), Daariz by the Sahamiye Foundation (a free literacy app) and SomPower (electricity and solar). For support, start with HarHub, Innovate Ventures and the Tarmiye crowdfunding platform, and plan your payments around Telesom's ZAAD mobile money.
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Why Hargeisa Matters for Founders in 2027
Three things shape startups in Hargeisa. The first is mobile money. Telesom, which has operated in Somaliland since 2002 as a telecom, internet and mobile financial services provider, runs ZAAD: users send money, pay merchants, top up airtime and pay bills with short USSD codes, in both Somaliland shillings and US dollars. Businesses get merchant accounts, a merchant web portal and a ZAAD e-payment solution, so a startup can take payments without card networks. The second is the diaspora: founders and funders who studied or worked abroad, such as the Sahamiye Foundation set up by a co-founder of WorldRemit. The third is support from hubs rather than venture capital: HarHub and Innovate Ventures run training, incubation and small investment programmes, and very few funding rounds are ever published.
Hargeisa is a small ecosystem, like the ones in our guides to Maputo startups, Conakry startups and Mbabane startups. Compare it with a bigger regional hub in our list of Beirut startups to watch.
Hargeisa Startups to Watch in 2027 Compared
Sources: each company's official website, checked 1 November 2026; Radio Ergo for Dhaweeye's base. None of the five publishes a funding amount.
The Hargeisa Startups to Watch in 2027
1. Dhaweeye: a super app for rides, food and deliveries
Dhaweeye describes itself as a super app for on-demand services in Somaliland. In one app, users book taxis, order food from restaurants, send parcels, shop for groceries and products in its Suuq marketplace and book flight tickets. Drivers, delivery partners and restaurants sign up as partners, and its site says it took 12 months to launch Dhaweeye Food across all regions of Somaliland. According to a Radio Ergo report of September 2019, Dhaweeye started as an online taxi firm in Hargeisa founded by local and diaspora youth, launched its taxi app in March 2019 and was already working with more than 2,000 drivers. It does not publish funding figures.
Lesson for founders: Dhaweeye started with one service, taxis, and added food, delivery and shopping on top of the same drivers and customers. In a small market, one trusted app that does several jobs can beat several apps that each do one.
Best for: founders in mobility, delivery, marketplaces and consumer apps.
2. Soobooking: hotel booking for Somali-speaking regions
Soobooking connects travellers with hotels, apartments and event halls in Hargeisa, Mogadishu, Garowe, Jigjiga, Djibouti, Burao, Borama, Berbera and Gabiley, through its website and an app. Its About page says the company's main office is in Hargeisa and that partner hotels pay a 15% commission per booking that will not increase; in return Soobooking promotes them online, updates room availability daily and trains hotel staff. Innovate Ventures, the Hargeisa accelerator, lists SooBooking.com among its startups. It does not publish funding figures.
Lesson for founders: Soobooking brings hotels online that the big global booking sites barely cover, and offers them hands-on help to join. Look for a regional gap that global platforms ignore, and win it with service.
Best for: founders in travel, hospitality and marketplaces.
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3. Muraadso: e-commerce with physical stores
Muraadso is an online shop based on the 1st floor of a building on Road No. 1 in Hargeisa. When we checked in November 2026, its site said that online shopping was taking a short break while it builds a new website, and that its team still handles existing orders, shopping enquiries and new sellers by phone and WhatsApp. According to SomalilandBiz (April 2018), Muraadso graduated from the Innovate Ventures accelerator and built a hybrid model: customers can try electronics in its physical stores before they buy, and pay with ZAAD mobile money. It does not publish funding figures.
Lesson for founders: Muraadso mixed online and offline because many customers want to see a product before paying for it. Do not copy a pure online model from a market where trust and internet access are higher than in yours.
Best for: founders in e-commerce, retail and consumer electronics.
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4. Daariz by the Sahamiye Foundation: a free literacy app
Daariz is a suite of free education apps. Its first app, Daariz Somali, teaches reading, writing and comprehension in Somali and English and works on basic smartphones. It is built by the Sahamiye Foundation, a non-profit that WorldRemit co-founder Ismail Ahmed established in April 2021 and that is based in London and Hargeisa. The foundation says Daariz has reached 410,000 users, that 48% of them are girls and women, and that the app cuts the time needed to reach functional literacy in one's mother tongue from 450 hours to 50.
Lesson for founders: Daariz teaches in the learner's mother tongue first and rewards progress with game elements such as virtual camels. Localising content, not just translating it, is what makes an education product work.
Best for: founders in edtech, social impact and non-profit technology.
5. SomPower: electricity and solar for Somaliland
SomPower is a privately owned utility founded in 2016 by a consortium of 41 utility companies, with its headquarters in Hargeisa. Its site says it has a market share of about 85%, generates about 120,000 MWh a year from more than 22 power stations and employs more than 1,000 people. It sells household and industrial connections with smart metering and solar solutions, and customers can pay their bills through mobile apps. It is not a young tech startup, but it is the company that every hardware, solar or cold-chain founder in Hargeisa depends on, which is why we list it here.
Lesson for founders: SomPower was formed by merging dozens of small operators into one larger company. When a market is split between many small players, consolidation can be a business model in itself.
Best for: founders in energy, climate tech and infrastructure.
Where Hargeisa Startups Get Support
- HarHub: an innovation hub founded in 2018 and headquartered in Hargeisa. It runs incubation and acceleration programmes, a coworking space, a coding academy, a drone lab, digital skills training and access-to-finance schemes. Its homepage counters, last updated on 31 January 2026, show $1,360,000 in investment disbursed, 530 startups funded and $313,545 crowdfunded. Its portfolio includes Kaaha Design, a Hargeisa startup founded by Hamda Abdiwahab that turns plastic waste into handcrafted bags, and MoMarket, an e-commerce platform founded in Hargeisa in 2021.
- Tarmiye crowdfunding: HarHub's crowdfunding platform, where people in Somalia or Somaliland only need a mobile money account to back a project. Its site shows $313,545 raised and $298,246 in matching funds.
- Innovate Ventures: a Somali startup accelerator and early-stage fund with an office in the Jigjiga Yar area of Hargeisa. Its three-month Innovate Accelerator Programme combines mentoring with investment, and its site counts more than 60 startups, 15 mentors, 150 founders and $200,000 in funding. Applications were marked closed when we checked, and the latest programme dates on its site are from 2020, plus a Women Business Accelerator call from 2023, so ask the team about the next cycle before you plan around it.
- Telesom ZAAD for business: merchant accounts, a MyMerchant web portal with real-time reports and a ZAAD e-payment solution let startups accept mobile money from day one.
- Shuraako Capital: provides five-year murabaha financing and technical assistance to small and medium-sized companies in the Somali region; it suits businesses with revenue more than early-stage startups.
- Youth Development Fund: according to Dawan Africa, Somaliland's Youth Development Fund launched the second phase of a $500,000 programme of interest-free loans for young entrepreneurs in October 2026, run with MicroDahab and repayable over two years, with online applications and a three-stage assessment.
HarHub also co-hosted the Somaliland Tech Expo 2026 and ran its Technology Innovation Challenge, a six-day competition between ten universities with a USD 30,000 prize pool that Amoud University won. University teams are worth watching as a source of the next startups.
Hargeisa Startups From the Old List That Could Not Be Verified
The 2026 version of this article listed ten startups. Here is what we found when we checked each one in October and November 2026:
- SolarEdge Somalia, SomFinTech, Hargeisa Health, AgriNext, GoHargeisa Tours, EduNext Hargeisa, Hargeisa Logistics, AquaAgri Somalia and GreenBuild Hargeisa: we found no official website, registry entry or news coverage for any of them. The somfintech.com address shows a placeholder page with no location. All nine were removed, together with their figures, such as 50,000 users, a Series A round, 20,000 consultations, 500 hectares and a 15% cut in construction waste.
- TechStart Hargeisa: the website the old article linked to does not exist, and we found no other trace of an incubator by that name. For real incubators, see HarHub and Innovate Ventures above.
- Caafisom: a health app that, according to African Business, raised a $110,000 seed round led by Tofino Capital and the Takeoff Fund in July 2023. Its website did not load when we checked, and the investors' websites show parked pages, so we left it out until it can be confirmed.
- Gulivery, Dalbo Food and SaamiOnline: Hargeisa delivery and e-commerce startups from earlier years whose websites no longer load.
- Diiwaan, Yool Tech and Nasiye: real companies, but their websites give addresses in Jijiga (Ethiopia) and Mogadishu, so they are not on a Hargeisa list.
We also removed the old article's links to a third-party business ideas page that it used as a source, and its unsourced claims about the ecosystem.
Which Hargeisa Startup Should You Learn From?
- You build a consumer app: study Dhaweeye, which grew from taxis into food, delivery and shopping.
- You build a marketplace: study Soobooking, which signs up hotels one by one with a simple, fixed commission.
- You sell physical products online: study Muraadso, which combined an online shop with stores and mobile money.
- You work in education or social impact: study Daariz, which teaches in the mother tongue and works on basic smartphones.
- You build hardware, solar or climate tech: study SomPower to understand how power is supplied and paid for in the city.
- You are just starting: join HarHub's programmes, ask Innovate Ventures about its next cycle, and set up a ZAAD merchant account early.
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How Founders Use Hargeisa's Startup Scene
Notice where the money comes from: hubs, crowdfunding, development partners and diaspora founders, with almost no published venture rounds. If you build in Hargeisa, plan for non-dilutive money first: see our lists of grants for female entrepreneurs and grants for early-stage startups. When you are ready for investors, compare our guide to early-stage VC firms.
If you are still choosing where to build, compare countries in our guide to the best countries for early-stage startups and cities in our guide to the best cities for early-stage startups, read about another small ecosystem in our list of Kabul startups to watch, and meet founders and investors at startup events for female entrepreneurs.
Before you copy any of these business models, validate your startup idea with real customers. Small ecosystems reward visibility: list your startup in the F/MS marketing directories, publish your startup press release, and write about your product with the F/MS AI SEO Tool or the AI SEO Blog so customers, investors and AI assistants can find you.
FAQ About Hargeisa Startups to Watch in 2027
Which Hargeisa startups should I watch in 2027?
Our verified list: Dhaweeye, Soobooking, Muraadso, Daariz by the Sahamiye Foundation and SomPower. Each one's own website confirms that it operates, and each is based in Hargeisa according to its site or, for Dhaweeye, Radio Ergo. We checked them in October and November 2026.
Why are there only five companies on this list?
Hargeisa's startup scene is young, and we only list companies whose website confirms that they exist and still operate. None of the ten names in the old article could be found, and several real startups from earlier years no longer have a working website.
Is Hargeisa in Somalia or Somaliland?
Hargeisa is the capital of Somaliland, a self-declared state that is internationally recognised as part of Somalia. Startups there use local services such as Telesom's ZAAD mobile money and the Somaliland shilling alongside the US dollar.
How do startups in Hargeisa take payments?
Mostly through mobile money. Telesom's ZAAD lets customers pay merchants with short USSD codes in shillings or dollars, and businesses get merchant accounts, a web portal and an e-payment solution. Muraadso, for example, has accepted ZAAD payments, according to SomalilandBiz.
Where can Hargeisa founders get support?
HarHub runs incubation, acceleration, coworking, a coding academy and the Tarmiye crowdfunding platform. Innovate Ventures runs a three-month accelerator with investment, although its applications were closed when we checked. Shuraako Capital finances established small businesses in the Somali region.
Who invests in Hargeisa startups?
Very few rounds are published. HarHub reports $1,360,000 in investment disbursed and 530 startups funded, Innovate Ventures reports $200,000 in funding, and according to African Business the health app Caafisom raised a $110,000 seed round in 2023. Diaspora founders and family money fund many others.
Are there female founders in Hargeisa?
Yes. HarHub's portfolio includes Kaaha Design, founded by Hamda Abdiwahab, which turns plastic waste into handcrafted bags, and Innovate Ventures has run a Women Business Accelerator. Our guide to grants for female entrepreneurs lists more funding options for women founders.
What happened to the startups on the old list?
We removed all ten: SolarEdge Somalia, SomFinTech, Hargeisa Health, AgriNext, GoHargeisa Tours, EduNext Hargeisa, Hargeisa Logistics, TechStart Hargeisa, AquaAgri Somalia and GreenBuild Hargeisa. We found no website, registry entry or news coverage for any of them, so their figures were removed too.
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About the Author
Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
