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Vodafone Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Vodafone Group, announced that it has invested in Egyptian startup 2ogra. The announcement was made during the EuroMoney conference that took place on October 9-10 in Cairo.

Co-founded by entrepreneur Tamer Ahmad and Edward Disley, 2ogra (previously iCall Taxi) is a mobile application that connects users with taxi drivers. Using the app, users can request or book a cab for a fee, roughly half a US dollar, and the nearest available driver will be notified of the request. The app also allows the user to track the cab’s route until it arrives at the pickup point. Aside from booking cabs, 2ogra provides users with a number of benefits. For customers, these include checking up on relatives for reassurance and tracking and retrieving any lost item during previous commutes. Taxi drivers on the other hand can save some time, money and effort finding customers. Finally, the app also provides a platform for both customers and drivers’ feedback, in addition to a driver rating system.

2ogra was the 1^st runner up in the Ideathon competition at the ArabNet Cairo Conference in 2011, and later incubated by Flat6Labs in its 2nd cycle. It is worth mentioning that Vodafone Ventures also announced that it has invested in 2 additional Flat6Labs startups.

Watch Tamer's pitch during ArabNet Cairo 2011:

The prospective investment will go towards strengthening the aspects of mobile communications and Internet, since Vodafone is one of the three operators in Egypt offering mobile internet, in addition to DSL Internet connections.

2ogra’s plans for the future include expansion into the Levant region and the GCC. Tamer has resigned from 2ogra, however Edward Disley is the current CEO.

The application, which isn't out yet, is expected to be available for iOS and Android powered devices.

Details on the size of the investment or its time frame haven’t been disclosed. 2ogra’s CEO couldn’t be reached in time for this article, but we will update it as soon as we receive any word from 2ogra or Vodafone.

You can follow 2ogra on Facebook or Twitter.

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