# Ahmed Gaballah

> Ahmed Gaballah is the founder and CEO of SOKNA, Egypt's first end-to-end funeral services platform. After 16 years in California building products at Google, Adobe and Facebook, he returned to Cairo in 2019 to fix one of the messiest, most painful logistics problems anyone ever faces: burying a loved one. SOKNA handles paperwork, body preparation, transport, cemetery setup, condolence halls and repatriation, and has grown into a profitable operation serving families across every Egyptian governorate, with a cemetery project and international expansion now in motion.

- **Role:** Founder & CEO at SOKNA
- **Organizations:** SOKNA, Google, Adobe, Facebook, Parlio, Monarch Money, MaxAB
- **Nationality:** Egyptian
- **Education:** BSc Computer Science, minor in Business Administration, The American University in Cairo, Advanced Project Management, Stanford University, Study abroad, American University of Beirut, Study abroad, UCLA
- **Known for:** Founded SOKNA, Egypt's first end-to-end funeral services platform, Served more than 1 million clients in Egypt and abroad with a reported 99.5% satisfaction rate and an NPS of 98.9, Raised a $1M seed round, oversubscribed, exceeding the initial target within roughly 10 days

## Career timeline

- **2004** — Product Manager at ShopLink
- **2006-2010** — Decision Support Engineering Analyst, later Product Manager, at Google
- **2010-2014** — Senior Product Manager (Strategic Growth Markets) and Product Manager, International, at Adobe
- **2014** — Investor in Parlio (later acquired by Quora)
- **2014-2018** — Product Management roles at Facebook: Business Communication & Growth, Special Audiences, Facebook Search, Facebook Growth
- **2019** — Founded SOKNA in March; first month handled 19 funerals with a team of 3
- **2020** — SOKNA publicly launches Egypt's first end-to-end funeral services
- **2021** — Angel investments in Monarch Money and MaxAB
- **2022** — Closed $1M seed round; named exclusive funeral provider for the Egyptian Syndicate of Actors
- **2025** — Pursues private-sector cemetery solutions amid Cairo space shortages
- **2026** — Plans technology-driven products and international expansion; cemetery project underway

## Achievements

- Founded SOKNA, Egypt's first end-to-end funeral services platform
- Served more than 1 million clients in Egypt and abroad with a reported 99.5% satisfaction rate and an NPS of 98.9
- Raised a $1M seed round, oversubscribed, exceeding the initial target within roughly 10 days
- Built a profitable company operating across all Egyptian governorates through hospital, embassy and syndicate partnerships
- Named exclusive funeral service provider for the Egyptian Syndicate of Actors and worked with the Journalists' Syndicate
- Assembled 70+ partner vendors in Greater Cairo
- 16-year Silicon Valley career across Google, Adobe and Facebook before founding SOKNA

## Latest updates

- **2026-02** — SOKNA plans to launch technology-driven products in 2026 to improve customer experience and enable expansion beyond Egypt; technology runs 'in the background' via dispatching, prediction and data tracking.
- **2025-12** — SOKNA turns to private-sector solutions to ease cemetery shortages in Egypt amid rising demand.

## Links

- Website: https://sokna.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmedgaballah
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/FeelSOKNA
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soknagroup

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/ahmed-gaballah
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-25