Karim Jouini and Jihed Othmani, the co-founders of Tunisian fintech startup Expensya, are back with a new venture – Thunder Code, a generative AI-powered platform for automating software testing. The France- and Tunisia-based startup has raised $9 million in seed funding, TechCrunch reports.

The launch comes nearly two years after the pair sold Expensya to Swedish firm Medius in a deal estimated at over $120 million, marking one of the largest African tech exits to date.

After serving as chief product and technology officer at Medius, Jouini teamed up again with Othmani, who had led AI efforts at Expensya, to build Thunder Code. The platform uses AI “agents” to replicate the work of human QA testers – identifying bugs, learning from interactions, and accelerating development workflows.

Thunder Code launched its minimum viable product within six weeks and is now in use by paying customers and pilot programs across the U.S., Canada, France, and Tunisia. Expansion into mobile, desktop, and API testing is planned by late 2025.

The $9 million round drew investors including Silicon Badia, Janngo Capital, Titan Seed Fund, and strategic angels like Station F’s Roxanne Varza and InstaDeep’s Karim Beguir. Former Expensya employees who benefited from the Medius deal also invested.

Thunder Code is positioning itself to disrupt a software testing market projected to top $100 billion by 2027, where legacy players like Tricentis and BrowserStack are seen as slow to embrace generative AI.