Expensya Founders Raise $9M for New Startup Thunder Code
TLDR
- After vowing never to build another startup post-Expensya, co-founders Karim Jouini and Jihed Othmani are back with Thunder Code
- The Paris- and Tunis-based startup has already secured $9 million in seed funding, just six months after launch
- The move follows their successful 2023 exit from Expensya, a leading African expense management platform
After vowing never to build another startup post-Expensya, co-founders Karim Jouini and Jihed Othmani are back with Thunder Code, a generative AI-powered software testing platform. The Paris- and Tunis-based startup has already secured $9 million in seed funding, just six months after launch.
The move follows their successful 2023 exit from Expensya, a leading African expense management platform, acquired by Swedish firm Medius in a deal rumored to exceed $120 million. Now, Thunder Code aims to automate slow, manual QA processes using AI-powered agents that simulate human testers, flag subtle UI/UX bugs, and learn from real-world feedback.
Jouini, who served as CTO at Medius post-acquisition, said the idea emerged during his oversight of multiple software integrations, where testing consistently emerged as a bottleneck. Thunder Code’s MVP was shipped in just six weeks and now supports paying clients across France, Tunisia, the U.S., and Canada.
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Key Takeaways
Thunder Code enters a fast-moving but fragmented market for automated testing tools, aiming to challenge incumbents like BrowserStack and Tricentis with a leaner, AI-native approach. The global software testing market is projected to exceed $100 billion by 2027, and Jouini believes Thunder Code’s speed and generative tech give it an edge. Unlike their first startup, Jouini and Othmani are applying hard-earned lessons early, focusing on core features, hiring top talent, and embracing early equity dilution to attract the best people. Thunder Code’s backers include Silicon Badia, Janngo Capital, Titan Seed Fund, and prominent angels like Roxanne Varza (Station F) and Karim Beguir (InstaDeep). Former Expensya employees have also reinvested proceeds from the acquisition. With traction in web app testing and plans to expand into mobile and API testing by late 2025, Thunder Code is racing to become the go-to AI testing platform for modern development teams.
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