Shaffra opens Azerbaijan headquarters, its first expansion beyond GCC
The UAE-founded AI startup is opening in Azerbaijan, its first step into the Caspian region.
Shaffra, a GCC-based enterprise AI startup, has opened a regional headquarters in Azerbaijan. The UAE-founded company was established in 2023, and the move marks its first expansion outside the GCC. It also puts Shaffra into the Caspian region for the first time.
The company sells an Enterprise AI Workforce Platform. The platform is designed to let organisations deploy Autonomous AI Teams, and the first products available in Azerbaijan are the AI Call Center, the AI Sales Center, and the AI Project Manager. Future development will continue around AI employees for customer service, sales, operations, HR, and project management.
Shaffra was founded by Marc Wehbi, Alfred Manasseh, and Alharith Alatawi, who serves as CEO. The company says its systems helped enterprises and governments save more than two million work-hours per month during 2025. It has raised more than $10 million, with stc, Omantel, and global technology investors among its backers.
Alatawi said demand for autonomous AI teams is growing outside the GCC. What clients want, he explained, are AI employees that operate inside real workflows rather than as isolated tools. He also said the efficiency of deployment will matter as much as the autonomy of the systems. The Caspian opening, he added, is a meaningful first step for the company.
AI Call Center works as an autonomous employee for inbound and outbound customer interaction. It manages the full call journey from enquiry handling to ticket creation and follow-up, with support for phone, WhatsApp, SMS, email, websites, and dashboards.
AI Sales Center engages prospects across customer channels and carries them from first contact through conversion. Its scope includes lead qualification, meeting booking, follow-up automation, and sales performance monitoring, and it runs on WhatsApp, websites, email, phone, and social channels.
AI Project Manager coordinates workflows and project delivery. It tracks progress, follows up with stakeholders, flags delivery risks, and strengthens accountability, while integrating with enterprise project management and communication systems.
The Caspian operation is built on the company's Subconscious AI cognitive architecture. That architecture gives AI employees memory, context, and operational understanding. Alatawi said Shaffra focuses on markets that support token-efficient and energy-efficient AI deployment. Token and energy efficiency, he explained, lower the cost per compute, the cost per action, and the overall economics of running these systems.
The expansion builds on Shaffra's growth in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Azerbaijan has 200 startups, so the immediate local market is relatively small; the greater opportunity is regional. Shaffra intends to build on the Azerbaijan office as it moves into the broader Caspian market, and the company said additional partnerships in other Caspian countries are already in place. Alatawi described Azerbaijan as a solid entry point for that push. The global agentic AI market is projected to reach $93.20 billion by 2032.
