Hatem Dowidar, Former Etisalat amp; CEO, Joins Tactful AI as an Investor in Pre-Series A Round
Tactful AI, a startup specializing in agentic AI-driven customer experience (CX) infrastructure, announced that Hatem Dowidar, former Group CEO of Etisalat, has joined its investor roster through a direct investment in the company's Pre-Series A extension round. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The move comes as Tactful AI prepares to roll out its next leap in Agentic AI technology—a shift expected to serve as a crucial inflection point for enterprise capability, operational agility, and proactive market responsiveness.
Dowidar brings a quarter-century track record in telecommunications and technology. He served as Group CEO of Etisalat from 2020 through March 2026, having joined the company as Chief Operating Officer in 2015. Prior to Etisalat, Dowidar spent 16 years in executive leadership roles at Vodafone, including CEO of Vodafone Egypt.
Commenting on the investment, Mohamed Elmasry, Co-founder and CEO of Tactful AI, said:
"Hatem Dowidar spent over 25 years leading major tech powerhouses serving millions of customers across the Middle East and Africa. Very few leaders share his depth of understanding and strategic clarity regarding what large enterprises require before trusting new, customer-facing technologies. His support and trust come at a pivotal moment as we take our boldest step yet toward defining a new era of agentic AI-driven customer experience."
Hatem Dowidar added:
"Enterprises across the region are actively seeking practical, reliable solutions to integrate AI into their customer operations safely and at scale. Tactful has successfully deployed this infrastructure in live production environments. Seeing the capabilities of their next-generation technology convinced me that this team has everything it takes to set the industry benchmark, both regionally and globally."
While most current AI applications remain limited to answering routine queries, Tactful AI’s next-generation technology bridges this gap by addressing a core enterprise challenge: building, modifying, and evolving end-to-end CX workflows directly within the enterprise. This approach compresses development cycles from months to hours while maintaining human-in-the-loop oversight and sign-offs at every step. The company plans to reveal further technical details in the coming months.
The upcoming technology builds on a unified infrastructure already proven in live production, driving rapid growth. The platform seamlessly integrates engagement, orchestration, governance, analytics, advanced automation, and agentic AI.
This technical momentum is reflected in the company's financial performance since January 2025: Tactful AI recorded an 11.7x increase in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and a 32x surge in monthly customer conversations processed through the platform. Its client portfolio includes Elaraby Group, Raneen, 2B, Lucky One, Erada Finance, and Simplex.
This extension follows Tactful AI’s initial Pre-Series A round announced in February 2026, co-led by Foras AI and M Empire. The company aims to build on this investor momentum as it prepares for a Series A funding round in 2027.