Yomkencom

What Yomkencom does

Yomken.com is an open-innovation and crowdsolving marketplace that connects organizations with industrial, environmental, and societal challenges to a network of individual innovators who can solve them. Founded in 2012 in Cairo, Egypt, and operated as a project of Istebdaa LLC for Consultancy, the platform serves challenge owners including NGOs, social organizations, government agencies, and corporates (e.g., Samsung Egypt, GIZ-InnoPA, SwitchMed), as well as individual innovators and entrepreneurs. The platform's core product is a web-based CrowdSolving site where challenge owners post problems and innovators submit solutions, with a separate Marketplace module where innovators list projects, patents, and market research for potential funding or collaboration. Cumulative platform metrics disclosed on the site are modest: 6,300 registered innovators, 75 solved challenges, 236 solutions posted, an 82% success rate, and $198.7K in total money awards distributed.

The platform supports challenges in multiple languages (English, French, Arabic) and operates in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Palestine, and France, with a regional HQ in Tunis. Strategic partnerships with ASRT, GIZ's InnoPA project, and the EU-funded SwitchMed program anchor the platform within donor and government innovation pipelines in the MENA region. Yomken earns a 10% commission on the monetary value of challenge rewards (split 50% upfront, 50% on solution delivery), and supplements this with consulting services covering innovation management, capacity-building, and open-innovation program design. Active challenges visible on the site include eco-innovation, agricultural automation, and assistive technology, with sponsor-led rewards typically in the 1,000-1,250 EUR range.

Name

Yomkencom

Legal name

Istebdaa LLC for Consultancy (استبداع للاستشارات)

Website

https://yomken.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2012

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Yomken.com is a Cairo-based crowdsolving marketplace connecting NGOs, corporates, and government agencies with ~6,300 innovators across the Arab region to solve industrial, environmental, and societal challenges for monetary or non-monetary rewards.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Cairo

HQ country

Egypt

HQ region

Africa

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Transaction Fee (10% Commission): Yomken.com charges 10% of the monetary value of the reward from either the solution seeker or the sponsor of the challenge. Half of payment is made in advance and the second half after finding a solution, to guarantee the commitment of all parties.
2. Consulting Services: Yomken provides consulting services on innovation management, ideation processes, capacity-building, and other innovation-related services.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Yomken.com is a web-based open-innovation crowdsolving platform where NGOs, companies, and governmental agencies post industrial, environmental, and societal challenges, and a community of more than 6,300 registered innovators submits solutions that are awarded monetary or non-monetary rewards. The platform charges a 10% commission on challenge reward value and operates an Innovation Marketplace where creators showcase projects, patents, and research for funding or collaboration.

Product overview

Yomken is a dual-offering platform consisting of a CrowdSolving Platform and a Marketplace. The CrowdSolving Platform enables organizations to post challenges and receive solutions from the crowd, while the Marketplace allows innovators to showcase their projects, patents, and research to connect with funding and collaboration opportunities. The company also offers supplementary consulting services including Innovation Management Consulting, Capacity-Building Training, and Open-Innovation Services for organizations seeking to leverage crowdsourced innovation methodologies.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• CrowdSolving Platform Web-based open-innovation platform where NGOs, companies, and governmental agencies post industrial, environmental, and societal challenges with funded rewards and a community of more than 6,300 innovators submits solutions for selection and award.
• Marketplace Digital marketplace where innovators, entrepreneurs, and creators publish innovative projects, patents, and market research to be linked with financial vehicles, collaborators, and supporters for development.
• Innovation Management & Policy Consulting Consulting service for clusters and organizations covering innovation management, monitoring and evaluation of projects, economic analysis, technology foresight, and ideation workshops to identify gaps and linkages.
• Capacity-Building Services Training service for innovators covering innovation lifecycle management, product lifecycle, e-marketing, pricing, and crowdsolving/open-innovation methodologies.
• Open-Innovation Services Service for organizations covering design, management, and evaluation of innovation competitions, sponsoring challenges, and creating thematic calls for challenges.
• Crowdsourcing Support Activities Service covering sponsoring calls for ideas, obtaining crowdsourced databases for potential new ideas, and providing crowdfunding training services.

Quantifiable outcome

• 82% challenge success rate with 75 solved challenges and 236 solutions posted
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability5 records

Feature2 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• ASRT (Academy of Scientific Research and Technology)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerStrategic partner collaborating on solving community challenges. Yomken and ASRT have worked together on challenges such as the Okra Sorting Machine challenge under the auspices of ASRT to find innovative solutions.
• GIZ (German Development Agency)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerImplementing partner for government innovation projects. GIZ-InnoPA project focuses on digital government services in Egypt, collaborating with Yomken on challenges like Digital Egypt Gamification to promote Egypt Digital platform services.
• SwitchMed / Switchers Eco-Innovation ProgramcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerEU-funded initiative for circular economy in the Mediterranean. Yomken serves as the crowdsolving platform for the Switchers Eco-Innovation Program, handling challenges in eco-innovation for companies in Egypt, Tunisia, and Spain.
• Expo LiveminorGTM or Marketing PartnerStrategic partner from Expo 2020 Dubai supporting innovation programs.
• Build PalestineminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorCountry partner organization in Palestine for local innovation ecosystem development.
• IstebdaacoreOthersIstebdaa LLC.Corp is the parent company that owns and manages Yomken.com. Registered in Egypt at 24 Hussein Higazi Street, Downtown Cairo.
• Anonymous FactoryminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerFactory partner for implementing the Okra Sorting Machine challenge solution, collaborating with Yomken's team.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Direct peers

• Wazoku: Wazoku operates the Idea Spotlight / Crowd of Innovators platform, a direct competitor in open-innovation and crowdsolving for enterprise and government clients. It acquired InnoCentive, giving it a global challenge-based innovation marketplace that mirrors Yomken's challenge-posting and solution-submission model, although at much larger scale and primarily Western enterprise focus.
• HeroX: HeroX is a crowdsourcing platform for innovation challenges where organizations post problems and the crowd submits solutions for prizes — a near-identical business model to Yomken's CrowdSolving Platform. It serves as a direct global benchmark for challenge-based open innovation, with comparable reward mechanics and success-rate-driven positioning.
• NineSigma: NineSigma runs OpenIDEAL, an open-innovation marketplace connecting corporate R&D needs with external solvers. It is directly comparable to Yomken as an established open-innovation intermediary serving large enterprises, though NineSigma focuses on deeper R&D outsourcing rather than community-led challenge engagement.
• IdeaConnection: IdeaConnection is a crowdsourced innovation platform that matches client challenges with networks of expert solvers, closely mirroring Yomken's challenge-and-reward model. It serves as a directly comparable peer in the open-innovation intermediary space, with similar paid-solution economics.
• Brightidea: Brightidea provides an innovation management platform with idea crowdsourcing, challenge management and consulting — overlapping Yomken's mix of marketplace and innovation-management services. It targets enterprise innovation programs and is a comparable peer in the innovation-management software category.
• Topcoder (now part of Appen): Topcoder is a crowdsourcing platform that pays independent contributors to solve client challenges, structurally analogous to Yomken's reward-for-solution model. Although Topcoder focuses on software/tech tasks and Yomken on broader industrial/societal challenges, the platform mechanics (challenge posting, solver competition, take-rate economics) are closely aligned.
• Spigit: Spigit is an enterprise innovation-management platform enabling employee and external crowdsourcing of ideas and solutions, with consulting services. It is comparable to Yomken as a hybrid SaaS-plus-services innovation platform, though serving larger enterprise clients primarily in Western markets.
• HYPE Innovation: HYPE Innovation offers an open-innovation and idea-management platform paired with consulting, matching Yomken's combination of software platform and innovation-management services. It is a relevant peer for benchmarking how Yomken's consulting-plus-platform mix could evolve.

Others

• SwitchMed (programme operator, not company): SwitchMed is an EU-funded eco-innovation programme for the Mediterranean that uses Yomken as its crowdsolving platform. While not a commercial competitor, it is the closest ecosystem partner whose priorities directly shape Yomken's challenge pipeline and is relevant for understanding funding-flow exposure.
• GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit): GIZ is a key Yomken challenge sponsor and implementing partner for government innovation projects (e.g., Digital Egypt Gamification). It is relevant as the buyer/customer analog in Yomken's ecosystem rather than a direct competitor, but its funding decisions materially influence Yomken's challenge pipeline.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/yomkencom
• Facebookfacebook.com/yomkencom
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/yomkencom

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Yomkencom