Team Startupcity

• Thunder Code, a generative AI startup by Expensya’s founders, has raised $9M in seed funding within six months.
• It uses AI “agents” to automate software testing, aiming to outpace legacy platforms and new-age rivals alike.
•  With offices in Paris and Tunis, the startup is already running pilots in four countries and plans to expand rapidly by 2025.

After one of the continent's largest startup exits, most would take a breather. Not Karim Jouini. The ex-expat and former co-founder of Tunisian expense management startup Expensya   that Sweden's Medius acquired in 2023 for reportedly $120 million   is back on the startup trail with a new, ambitious venture.

Joining forces with his Expensya co-founder Jihed Othmani once again, Jouini has introduced Thunder Code, a generative AI-driven software testing platform that aims to accelerate and automate the painful QA process. The startup, less than six months old, has already secured $9 million in seed funding from high-profile investors such as Silicon Badia, Jaango Capital, Titan Seed Fund, and influential angels like Roxanne Varza and Instadeep CEO Karim Beguir.

We vowed we'd never start another startup after Expensya," Jouini said. "But it's like having another child   you forget how difficult the first one was. This time, however, we're going quicker and wiser.

After the acquisition, Jouini joined Medius as CTO and spearheaded integrations in six companies around the world. That's where the inspiration for Thunder Code came: QA and testing were universal bottlenecks regardless of software. Thunder Code now leverages AI agents to mimic human testers, identify UI/UX bugs, and continually learn from user input.

The startup has already signed on paying customers and is executing pilot projects in the U.S., Canada, France, and Tunisia. The platform currently specializes in web application testing but aims to add mobile, desktop, and API testing capabilities by late 2025.

Learning from past error, Jouini was faster this time rather than perfect. "We launched our MVP in six weeks. Thunder Code today is more stable at month six than Expensya was in year four."

Most importantly, the team is not scared of early dilution. "Founders in Africa tend to shy away from giving up equity. But if you can create a unicorn by splitting the pie, that's great value," Jouini said.

Thunder Code is based in Paris with a technology center in Tunis. Othmani, who developed AI initiatives at Expensya prior to the prevalence of generative AI, has extensive technical expertise to draw upon   a crucial advantage in an accelerating market full of legacy competitors such as Tricentis and newer AI-native contenders.

Jouini thinks Thunder Code has the ability to create 10x more value with fewer individuals by taking advantage of generative AI a vision of light, smart teams that could very well define the next software innovation wave.