Fundraising Fox
Hulugram
Techstars '23Addis Ababa, ET · 16 employees on LinkedIn · 3 known investors
Find your way into Hulugram
Sign up to see every warm intro you have to Hulugram
- Paths you didn't know you had: your email and LinkedIn already hold routes to the Hulugram team. We find them for you
- 2nd- and 3rd-degree connections: the friend-of-a-friend routes that take hours to manually find through your inbox or LinkedIn
- Answers now, not in days: momentum is everything in a raise. Skip asking around whether someone knows someone
Days of research, done the moment you sign in, with every route ranked by how warm it is.
Hulugram is a messaging and "super app" built on the Telegram API that combines private chats, communities, and features like real-time chat translation with a marketplace, content feed, music streaming, games, and stories. It serves both consumers and businesses looking to connect with customers, shop, and access digital services in one app.
Also known as Huluchat · HuluGram · Hulugram Messenger
Founders & leadership
Investors · 3
How we know: the Techstars portfolio · open dataset · Top 3000 Accelerator Startups (no YC) 2026-08 · Not right? Tell us
How we know: the VCSheet dataset · Not right? Tell us
Company profile
researched Sep 2026Hulugram is an Ethiopian messaging and "super app" distributed as Hulugram Messenger on Google Play. Built as a modified Telegram client, it combines private chats, groups, channels and bots with additional consumer features: a Story feature, an aggregated marketplace that pulls e-commerce channels into one place, an in-app message translator, chat preview, special contacts, forwarding tools, automatic chat sorting into customizable tabs (users, groups, channels, bots, favorites, unread, admin/creator), and notifications when a contact changes their profile. The app requests package installation permission so users can install APKs sent directly in chat, and its Play listing carries a Mature 17+ rating for user interaction.
The company positions itself as "Ethiopia's Everything App" — hulu means "everything" in Amharic. Coverage by Tech Safari describes Hulugram as beginning as an experiment among three founders from the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology who modified Telegram to improve the messaging experience, and frames the opportunity around Telegram's unusual dominance in Ethiopia relative to WhatsApp, driven by lower data consumption, resilience during connectivity restrictions and perceived security advantages, plus unmet demand among young Ethiopians for timeline photo sharing, local-language reading and writing, online shopping, transport and payments within one application.
Beyond the messenger, the developer account also publishes Hulumarket – Buy & Sell, a separate commerce app, and operates Telegram-based community and news channels (t.me/huluchat_official_group and t.me/huluchat_official) for user support and announcements.
Founding story
The product was started by Leoul, Tabor and Birhan, three founders from the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology, who initially made modifications to Telegram for their own use before the project gained wider adoption.
Business model
Hulugram distributes a free consumer messaging application through Google Play and aggregates commerce and content activity inside it, including a marketplace that consolidates e-commerce channels and a companion buy-and-sell app.
Traction
The Google Play listing reports more than 1 million downloads. Tech Safari reported over 1 million downloads by June 2023, achieved mostly through word of mouth, and an average of about 40 minutes of daily usage per user.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Hulugram is presented as an Ethiopia-focused entrant in the African super app category alongside Yassir in the Maghreb, Gozem in Francophone West Africa and MNT Halan in Egypt, and competes with the incumbent messaging platforms Telegram and WhatsApp in a market where Telegram has unusually high adoption.
Hulugram layers locally relevant super app functions — an aggregated marketplace, stories, message translation and extensive chat organization options — onto a Telegram-based messenger in a market where Telegram, rather than WhatsApp, is the dominant messaging platform.
Technology
The application is built on Telegram, extending the client with additional features such as automatic chat sorting and tab customization, message translation, stories, marketplace aggregation and in-chat APK installation.
Go-to-market
Distribution has been largely organic, with growth attributed mainly to word of mouth, supported by Telegram channels and groups used for announcements and user support.
Consumers in Ethiopia, particularly younger users who rely on messaging apps for social, commerce, news and content use cases, as well as merchants selling through e-commerce channels.
Geography
The developer is based in Ethiopia and the product is focused on the Ethiopian market; the app is distributed globally via Google Play.
History
Hulugram began as an experiment among three founders modifying Telegram to make the messaging experience more usable, and grew largely through word of mouth to more than one million downloads by mid-2023. The Google Play listing continued to receive updates through September 2026.
Compiled by commissioned research from 7 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 2
launches, deals, and filingsThe Hulugram Messenger Android app listing was updated, describing features including stories, an aggregated marketplace, message translation, chat preview and customizable chat tabs.
Tech Safari published its first investment memo on Hulugram, describing it as Ethiopia's 'Everything App' and disclosing that the newsletter's author manages a fund investing in the company.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 7
primary sources listed
- Hulugram Messenger - Apps on Google Playplay.google.com · web
7 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Hulugram do?
- Ethiopian chat-based super app built on Telegram with marketplace, stories and translation features, with 1M+ Android downloads.
- Who founded Hulugram?
- Hulugram was founded by Tabor Shiferaw.
- Who are Hulugram's investors?
- Hulugram's investors include DFS Lab Frontier, Techstars, DFS Lab.
- Where is Hulugram headquartered?
- Hulugram is headquartered in Addis Ababa, ET.