One of Africa’s Most Successful Founders Returns with New AI Startup, Thunder Code, Securing $9M in Funding

Karim Jouini and Jihed Othmani, the co-founders behind the expense management startup Expensya, which was acquired by Swedish firm Medius in 2023, have launched a new venture: Thunder Code, a generative AI-powered software testing platform. This marks their return to the startup world after previously vowing to avoid future entrepreneurial endeavors.

The acquisition of Expensya was one of the largest acquisitions of an African startup. Although the exact figures were not disclosed, sources estimated the sum to be over $120 million. Following this success, Jouini took on a CTO role at Medius, overseeing integrations across multiple continents.

However, the emergence of generative AI sparked a renewed interest in building something significant. “It’s pretty crazy because we promised not to do another company because Expensya was too hard,” Jouini said. “But I think it’s like when people have two kids, they forget how hard the first one was. This new venture is less than six months old and already super intense, but we’re fired up. We’re convinced this is unicorn material.”

Thunder Code has already secured $9 million in seed funding. The platform addresses the challenges of slow, manual software testing by using AI-powered “agents” that mimic human testers. These agents simulate QA processes, identify UI and UX issues, and continuously learn from feedback.

Jouini emphasized the importance of speed in this new venture, learning from Expensya’s initial hurdles. “We shipped our first MVP in week six, and now the product is much more solid six months in than Expensya was in year four,” he noted.

Thunder Code is gaining momentum, with paying customers and pilot programs in the U.S., Canada, France, and Tunisia. The company is currently focused on web application testing, with plans to expand into mobile, desktop, and API testing by late 2025.

Key investors in Thunder Code include Silicon Badia and Janngo Capital, firms that also invested in Expensya. Additionally, Titan Seed Fund and strategic angels such as Roxanne Varza (Director of Station F) and Karim Beguir (CEO of Instadeep) have contributed to the funding round. Former Expensya employees also invested after cashing out during the acquisition.

Jouini believes that AI will enable Thunder Code to generate significant value with a smaller team. While acknowledging the shift from expense management to software developer tools, he views software testing as a vast market ripe for disruption, estimating it will exceed $100 billion by 2027. Thunder Code aims to compete with legacy platforms and new entrants by leveraging AI for faster execution.

Headquartered in Paris with an office in Tunis, Thunder Code enters a competitive landscape alongside companies like UIPath, Jetify, and Nova AI. Othmani’s expertise in generative AI, developed through internal tools at Expensya, gives Thunder Code a competitive edge. The $9 million in funding positions the company to rapidly capture market share.