
Tunisian entrepreneur Karim Beguir founded Instadeep with two laptops and $2000
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Ed Butler
Hi there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily meets on the BBC World Service. This is where we bring you in depth interviews with people in business from across the globe. And today we have an entrepreneur who grew up in the Tunisian desert and went on to found Africa's largest AI firm.
Karim Beguir
If you had told me what would happen with Instadib, starting with a bootstrap, two laptops, $2,000 to creating the largest exit in African tech history and the largest in AI outside the us to this day, I'd have said you must be dreaming.
Ed Butler
It was a startup that would impress Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.
Karim Beguir
I was like, this must be a fake. I called Zora, I said can you check this? And she was like no, no. The email is indeed from Facebook. So meta and you should go and.
Ed Butler
Helped in the end with the fight against COVID 19.
Karim Beguir
You had this explosion of variants, but no human can process that amount of data.
Ed Butler
That's Karim Baghier, founder of Instadeep in today's Business Daily from the BBC. Karim Beguia was born in France, but he moved to southern Tunisia at an early age, to the very landscape that inspired Hollywood's Star wars movies. Today it's not a story of science fiction, but one where real innovation begins.
Karim Beguir
The whole family moved when I was one Year old to the Tunisian desert, literally Tatooine, which is famous for planet Tatooine of George Lucas and Star Wars. And this was literally the last city before the desert, as remote as it gets, even in Tunisia. And my dad could have made easier choices, either stay in France or like be on a coastal city or the capital in Tunisia. But he was from Tatooine and he wanted to give back. And so I grew up with essentially like that being like the doctor of the city, having like an exciting childhood. In, in many ways I felt I had a very privileged childhood.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
You studied mathematics, applied maths at universities in both France and in the United States. You then made a career in finance, right? You worked in banks.
Karim Beguir
Yes, that was my first port of call, so to speak. So like I studied all across Tunisia, made it to Paris, Ecole Polytechnique, the engineering, the French engineering school and, and later the US And I was passionate about applied mathematics. For me, this notion of applying knowledge to the real world and having a positive impact was key. And these were the early 2000s. And at the time, if you were into applied math, advanced modeling, et cetera, the most interesting jobs were in investment banks. This was just after the tech bubble had burst. And so I did that before moving to my true passions.
Ed Butler
That tech bubble burst refers to the dot com crash of the early 2000s when tech stock prices collapsed, sparking panic, mass sell offs, bankruptcies, and huge investor losses. But after years working in investment banking, following that time, Karim decided he was going to focus on what he calls his true passions.
Karim Beguir
Back when I was in New York, I had studied neural networks. I had found them intriguing.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
Describe what a neural network is.
Karim Beguir
So neural network is really like taking a signal, whether it's data, an image or the like, and sort of doing like multiple simple operations on it, multiplications, additions, and sort of like trying to get the system to learn. For example, like if this image is an image of a cat, it should tell you it's a cat and not a dog, for example. But much later on I came up with a research paper and it was talking about this amazing new technology called deep learning. And I was intrigued, like, what is deep learning? So I start reading the research paper and I'm like, well these are neural networks. I know this stuff. And that's what we decided to do.
Ed Butler
In 2014, Karim launched Instadeep with co founder Zora Slim, a self taught software developer also from Tunisia. InstaDeep quickly grew. Within just three years, Karim and Zora's vision had attracted serious Investment, eventually securing them $8 million in Series A funding, a first major round of capital investment.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
I've seen you've written that it started with two laptops, $2,000 and a lot of enthusiasm. That doesn't sound like very much given the challenge you were taking on.
Ed Butler
Exactly.
Karim Beguir
And I have to add, without a clear business plan, it' like, hey, we had this amazing strategy. We were going to do AI at the level of the very best in the industry. And suddenly we did it. No, it was this hunch that doing something entrepreneurial, connecting Africa and Europe, in particular North Africa. This was something that I was highly interested in. But really like the trigger for me was meeting my co founder, Zora Slim. Zora was the kind of person that you would feel super comfortable working with, no matter the time of the day and night. I remember us working until 3am trying to get the website of that project, which we were called lacademie. So startups are about people. They're not about like having this magical idea or business plan or whatever it's really about. It's a human adventure. Are you ready for it? Do you have the right partners? Is the relationship you have with your co founder really like rock solid? Because it will get tested. And that's how we created instadeep. With very limited ambitions, but that willingness to do stuff, experiment. And it was a lot of fun in the early days.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
But you were in Tunisia, which, let's be honest, was not a massively rich or wealthy business landscape in itself, was it? And you're trying something which is technology, which nobody's heard of. Artificial intelligence was hardly a word on people's lips in 2014, was it? So how did this evolve? What were you actually selling?
Karim Beguir
Software systems, websites, apps. The first years were tough. We took zero salary, four years, me and Zora. The first AI product we sold was in 2016 and was quite advanced for its time. So as a visual AI system to recognize objects and give them an estimate of price, for example, like luxury objects, watches, bags, etc. But in the early days it was simply a tech company. And then we started digging into AI. The first breakthrough from sort of like product and visibility. This came in 2017. Like the context was we went to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we showed our app and people were blown away. You guys are from North Africa, from Tunisia, and you built this. And we were like, yeah, yeah. And a journalist from PCMAG at the time came and saw this and he was very impressed. And we ended up in the 20 most intriguing startups of the Mobile World Congress. And this led ultimately to actually me receiving an email from the leadership of Facebook Meta saying, hey, actually Mark Zuckerberg would like to meet you. I was like, this must be a fake. I called Zora, I said, can you check this? And she was like, no, no, the email is indeed from Facebook, you know, at the time. So meta and you should go. And that's how suddenly I land in Silicon Valley, meet with Mark. We were like, this was a roundtable with 12 entrepreneurs. And I was like, this is actually possible. Like Silicon Valley is not this distant dream that you cannot reach. We have a shot at this. Ultimately leading the year after to the series A and our first breakthrough, which was a research breakthrough. I had been tremendously inspired by AlphaGo and AlphaZero from Google DeepMind, this notion that a system could learn even without data, just by trial and error.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
This is a machine literally teaching itself.
Karim Beguir
Exactly. It's like in this particular case, think about the game of chess and go essentially like play multiple, multiple games. And starting from zero, the system in a few hours, four or five hours would become essentially the very best player in history if you throw compute at it. And I was fascinated by this and I was like, okay, this is cool, but what about applying it with modifications in real industrial situations, Improving the efficiency of container loading, improving the efficiency of logistics, fleet management and the like. And that was our first paper which we decided to publish. And this was an important decision, like should we try to hide and patent and stuff. I was like, no, the AI research community is very open, let's publish. And that was probably like the best thing we had done or decided to do at the time.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
Why was that the best decision? Your IP wasn't going to be stolen by someone else.
Karim Beguir
That was the most surprising thing. I did it for fundamental reasons. And then I realized actually it was a very good move because suddenly people got interested into what we are doing.
Ed Butler
Then in 2020 with COVID the world was suddenly plunged into a pandemic and science and innovation took center stage. Karim had recently met the founder and CEO of BioNTech, a company developing vaccines and immunotherapies. They founded a partnership working on personalised cancer vaccines. But when COVID 19 began to spread, Biontech pivoted to developing a vaccine for that and instadeep got to work building a large language model to track dangerous new variants.
Karim Beguir
You had this explosion of variants, tens of thousands of different variants sequenced every week. And I was like, no human can process that amount of data. So we need to find out something like if you would get the amino acid sequence of that particular variant. Apparently we were the first team or one of the very first teams in the world to deploy large language model technology, LLM technology, so Transformers attention based models to actually the COVID variants, helping us prescreen with AI the sequences, the variants of interest.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
So this is an early warning system. It's an early warning system for future variants that could be dangerous. People may remember the Delta variant, it was very dangerous or it seemed to be in the first months, Right?
Karim Beguir
Yes.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
Omicron and Omicron as well. So these were the variants that were cropping up at that time and you were able to, to kind of catch them or at least flag them as they were approaching, which allowed people who were developing vaccines. Right. To adapt.
Karim Beguir
Exactly. And the important thing was to catch early signal before anything else. And so AI turned out to be actually a powerful tool in the fight against the pandemic. And even though it's a modest contribution, in the end nothing like what has been achieved with creating the vaccine. I felt this was exactly the kind of things that instadeep was about. It's literally build AI that benefits everyone.
Ed Butler
You're listening to Business Daily on the BBC World Service. I'm Ed Butler and today I'm speaking to Karim Begir. He's the Tunisian co founder of InstaDeep, Africa's biggest AI startup.
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Ed Butler
In 2023, BioNTech acquired the company Instadeep for $680 million to speed up its drug discovery and development efforts. The AI part of the business, now headquartered in London, continues to work with a range of sectors from offices in Europe, the us, Middle east and Africa, including Tunisia, of course. Karim Beguia says he's committed to giving back to Tunisian society. Drawing on his experience and expertise, he set up Project Tatooine. It's an initiative designed to train young Africans in digital and AI skills.
Karim Beguir
Project Tatooine is really like coming back actually to the origins of all this, which was can we offer a better future for young talents everywhere and in particular in the developing world? Really the experience I had with InstaDeep was that digital innovation could truly lead to abundance. If you had told me what would happen with Instadeep, starting with a bootstrap, two laptops, $2,000 to creating the largest exit in African tech history and the largest in AI outside the US to this day, I'd have said you must be dreaming. Yet it happened.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
And you still, at this point and even today, you have one foot in Tunisia, Right? One in London, primarily. These are your two bases.
Karim Beguir
Yes. And the third in Paris and the third in Paris.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
And this is a connection here. So Project Tatooine is the ambition essentially to help train and bring up young tech talent from, I guess, primarily the continent of Africa.
Karim Beguir
Exactly. And Project Tactoon is a personal project, it's not an in study project. What about we actually subsidize those classes, make them affordable. Students still have to have skin in the game. So like pay 20% of the cost of a class, the 80% being subsidized by us. Let's go all the way. If you have willingness to learn, willingness to work hard, and an Internet connection, then the world is yours. And that's exactly what we're doing.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
How many people do you have subscribed?
Karim Beguir
So we are now exceeded 1,000 students and the ultimate goal is.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
And these are from across Africa primarily.
Karim Beguir
So we started in North Africa, in Tunisia, but I think the project is going to expand beyond GoMyCode. Our EdTech partner is actually present in multiple countries, Senegal, Nigeria. And so there is potential to do a lot more in the future. It's really about the concept and in many ways, Ed, it's about breaking that sort of like glass wall, which is in people's minds, that I cannot be successful. If I am in Africa, I don't have the same opportunity as in Silicon Valley. Of course it's still true, but it's a lot less true than before because of the Internet, but also now because of AI. You could be in a remote town in Africa, but you would have essentially a team of geniuses working for you. Because modern AI, the IQ of the very best systems, is now reaching 150 IQ. So we're getting into the genius level category. And so in the past, you wouldn't have been able to build a team, a talented team that could compete. Today you can.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
It's a utopian vision, I guess, but there will be those. And you've hinted at this already, AI is itself a genius level right now. It does raise the question, where does that leave people? I mean, whether you're from a corner of Africa or whether you're from a rich western country, most of us are not geniuses. So, yeah, the computers are taking over.
Karim Beguir
And this is why it's extraordinarily important to learn how to control the computer or learn how to get those geniuses to work for you effectively. What's going on is we are now making a transition from a world built on zero sum mentality, precious, scarce resources, whether it is intelligence or energy, to a world where, effectively, energy and intelligence is going to be unlimited. And so this is a very profound change. But it's an extraordinary opportunity. There could be abundance for all. There is no physical law that says that, hey, we don't have enough food for everyone, we don't have enough opportunity for everyone. And so it's all about finding a way to do this. And I'm passionate about this issue. People are too gloomy about AI, particularly in the developing world. It's seen as a threat. People are going to be using AI systems rather than offshoring jobs and the like. That's true, but you could use AI yourself and develop solutions to the challenges you have in your community, in your country, and create unprecedented wealth.
Interviewer (possibly Ed Butler or another BBC journalist)
People could do that. But do you not share any of the fear? I mean, the fear is not, as I say, just in Africa. It's everywhere. That this usurping of human power, human potential by artificial intelligence, it will only take a few bad actors to deploy it in ways that could be horrendously destructive.
Karim Beguir
AI is a very powerful technology, and like we've seen in the past, very powerful tech. Think about, like, nuclear power can be used for good or bad reasons, but ultimately nuclear power was probably a net positive for humanity in terms of like a source of energy that's readily accessible and the like. And I suspect that it will be the same in AI. So are there concerns? Absolutely. Are there areas where we need more work, particularly on AI safety and the like? Absolutely. But the amount of work, opportunity, abundance and wealth is actually unlimited. When you think about it, there are so many challenges that would reward an entrepreneur solving them in Africa and beyond. So am I worried Net? No. But I am pragmatic and the main issue I'm trying to avoid at a personal level is disconnect between certain parts of the developing world and this technology.
Ed Butler
The thoughts of Karim Beguir, co founder of Instadeep and a man on a mission to put Africa at the forefront of AI development. He was speaking to me, Ed Butler, for this edition of Business Daily. To hear more episodes, search for Business Daily. Wherever you get your BBC podcasts and you can get in touch with the team, just send an email to business dailybc.co.uk Bye for now.
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Podcast: Business Daily
Host: Ed Butler, BBC World Service
Guest: Karim Beguir, Co-founder of InstaDeep
Date: January 30, 2026
This episode features an in-depth conversation with Karim Beguir, a Tunisian entrepreneur who co-founded InstaDeep—Africa’s largest AI company. The host, Ed Butler, explores Karim’s journey from his roots in the Tunisian desert to building a pioneering AI firm that would make history with the continent’s largest tech exit. The discussion covers startup challenges, breakthroughs in AI, global recognition, and the company’s integral role during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Karim’s mission to equip Africa’s youth with digital and AI skills.
On InstaDeep’s Humble Origins:
On the Nature of Startups:
On Publishing vs Patenting:
On AI for COVID:
On AI Opportunity for All:
On the Future with AI:
In this engaging interview, Karim Beguir candidly shares how vision, resilience, and partnership powered InstaDeep’s extraordinary ascent from the Tunisian desert to the global AI stage. He places special emphasis on the transformative potential of AI, both for Africa’s next generation and for humanity as a whole, advancing a message of optimism, inclusion, and global cooperation in unlocking the benefits of digital innovation.