Lebanon – StartUpArabia

Mizalla: A Lebanese Online Shopping Mall Platform

September 4, 2011September 4, 2011 MMM 4 Comments

Mizalla; a Lebanese online services, marketing, and retailing company; has launched a new online shopping mall site, that gathers various retailers offering hundreds of brands and products under one platform.

At this initial stage, the products available on the site are mainly electronics (cameras, home theatre televisions, software, laptops, scanners, computers …etc.), but the plan is to incorporate additional categories on a monthly basis to include items like books, clothing apparel, kitchenware, cosmetics and more.

Mizalla, which means Umbrella, aims to provide shoppers, the main focus being Lebanese shoppers at this point, with a comprehensive solution that enables them to easily search for products from different brands, compare them, order online and get them shipped as quickly as possible, all from the comfort of their homes or offices.

MEVP Announces First Investments In Three Lebanese Companies

October 8, 2010October 8, 2010 MMM 2 Comments

Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), has announced their three first investments in Lebanese-based companies: Pin-Pay, iLevel, and Multilane.

This round of funding from MEVP is meant as a growth investment in these companies to assist them in pursuing regional growth and development plans in addition to extending their product offerings.

US-Lebanon ICT Forum And ArabNet Beirut Startup Workshop

October 7, 2010October 7, 2010 MMM

The American Embassy in Lebanon and the American-Lebanese Chamber of Commerce are hosting the first annual US-Lebanon ICT Forum on Oct 14-15 at BIEL Center in Beirut, Lebanon.

The event is also being supported by the Union of Arab ICT Associations (IJMA3) and the National U.S. Arab Chamber of Commerce.

The forum will showcase 60 companies active in the ICT sector and their latest products, and will feature a series of seminars about trends in the technology and communications sector. The goal is to help Lebanese and American businesses capitalize on the growing bilateral commercial relations.

As part of the forum, ArabNet is organizing a free entrepreneurship workshop on October 14th from 6pm to 8pm, titled ‘Speed Up Your Startup‘.

Berytech Fund Invests In Panoramic Imaging Startup Dermandar

October 6, 2010October 6, 2010 MMM

Berytech Fund, the Beirut-based seed capital fund, just announced a new investment in Dermandar, a Lebanon based technology startup focused on online digital image processing; acquiring a 35% stake of the company through the deal.

Dermandar (Arabic for all around), is a company that has developed online software that automatically creates panoramic pictures in a fast and simple way.

It enables users to take photos with any normal camera, create a panorama out of them using their online tool really quickly and then share it with the world. Basically what the tool does is it takes the photos the user took, looks at the edges of the photos for matching parts and then uses those to stitch the photos together into a bigger panoramic image.

GoNabit Goes Live In Another Arab City With Deal In Beirut

September 29, 2010September 29, 2010 MMM

GoNabit, the online group-buying platform, that was launched for the region from Dubai earlier this year, has officially launched its first deal in Beirut Lebanon, marking its expansion into the third Arab city for it, after Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Just like in other cities, GoNabit will be featuring deals that people can sign-up to receive and buy if they’re interested, within a limited timeframe, with the deal only taking place once a minimum number of buyers commit to buying.

The first deal in Beirut is one for women, a 61% discount on a blow dry, manicure, and pedicure at the Fadia El Mendelek Salon in Beirut.

YallaStartup Weekend – November 12-14 @ Berytech, Beirut

September 22, 2010September 22, 2010 MMM 3 Comments

A number of you must’ve already heard about the StartupWeekend event concept, which has taken place in 54 cities in the US and around the world, with Oman being the first Arab country to host a couple such events recently.

YallaStartup plan to bring the concept to Beirut (Lebanon) too on on the weekend of November 12-14 at Berytech.

The weekend is a hands-on event that encourages out of the box creative thinking and startup creation. The idea is very simple: participants join on the first day of the weekend with a group of highly motivated developers, product, marketing, graphic and business people all mixed together. They team up, decide on an idea, code and deliver a prototype at the end of the weekend.

Euro-Mediterranean School 2010 Open For Entrepreneurs’ Applications

August 31, 2010August 31, 2010 MMM 8 Comments

The Euro-Mediterranean School (EMS), which is an initiative that aims to offer young entrepreneurs from the Euromed countries an opportunity to follow a learning program in the field of business management and entrepreneurship, has opened up applications for the fifth “Introduction to Entrepreneurship” course taking place this year.

EMS was founded by the Milan Chamber of Commerce, the Lombardy Region, and the Fondazione per la Sussidiarietà (‘Foundation for Subsidiarity’). These sponsoring bodies offer full scholarships to all participants covering travel costs, room and board, tuition fee and teaching materials for the entire duration of the course.

In 2010 EMS will host the fifth edition of the course “Introduction to Entrepreneurship”, in which the Chambers of Commerce of Naples and Reggio Calabria will also participate.The sponsoring bodies offer full scholarships to all participants, covering travel costs, room and board and teaching materials for the duration of the course.

Loomni, A Knowledge Sharing & Educational Platform

June 8, 2010June 8, 2010 MMM 2 Comments

Loomni is a new service that’s being launched today for the region that promises to reshape and transform continuing education, making it more accessible and affordable to everyone.

The problem Loomni is trying to solve is that of education outside of public schools and universities being out of reach for most people as it takes the form of limited, relatively long and expensive courses offered up by training institutions.

The idea of the startup is to fill the existing gap and provide learning opportunities for people who can’t afford expensive courses, nor have the time to spend locked up for long hours in a training venue somewhere. It aims to do this by providing focused practical courses delivered in 90 minutes, at a fraction of the price available in the market.

To be able to provide these lower prices, Loomni goes after another profile of instructors, mainly experts on certain fields who can share their knowledge and experience, educating people about their areas of expertise, but also helping market themselves and their services along the way.

Global Entrepreneurship Forum – Lebanon – June 23rd 2010

June 8, 2010June 8, 2010 MMM 1 Comment

Following TechWadi‘s entrepreneurship conferences in Silicon Valley in March and Washington DC in April, they’re organizing their first Global Entrepreneurship Forum in Beirut, Lebanon, on June 23 2010 at the AUB Olayan School of Business.

The goal of the conference is to build the necessary bridges between business leaders in the US and the MENA region, acting as a platform for cross-border partnerships to accelerate the development of entrepreneurship and innovation.

The Forum will bring together regional investors, executives, entrepreneurs and policymakers who all have interest in creating a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Arab world, as well as a delegation led by the US State Department including prominent investors and entrepreneurs seeking to expand cross-border ties with the MENA region.

Loomn.it, A New Quick Online Sharing Service

June 6, 2010June 6, 2010 MMM

Loomn.it (pronounced Loomnit) is a new easy to use, online sharing service that will be launching today and aims to provide users with a simple way to share anything with anyone; whether it be links, email addresses, images, videos, documents or any other digital content.

Through a very simplistic interface, users will be able to input the link for what they need to share or upload it directly to the cloud and then start sharing it with their friends on Facebook, twitter, google buzz or anywhere else on the web.

Users do not need to register for an account on the site to be able to use it, and don’t have any usage limits or quotas they have to keep within. They can start sharing right away and have their shared items live for 14 days to pass among their friends.

Once a person opens up a loomn.it link (e.g. http://loomn.it/c8); the shared page, text, image or file is displayed in a framed page with the top loomn.it frame providing stats on how many times the shared item was viewed, as well as options to share the item with others.