Tag: investment

Oasis500 Facilitates Investments In Jordanian Startups Dakwak & Masmoo3

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Oasis500, the MENA region focused early stage and seed investment program, has announced two new investment deals for Jordanian startup companies Dakwak and Masmoo3 from its first Angel Investment event, and that the program has also signed a partnership agreement with Akhtaboot.

Dakwak, the startup behind a tool that enables websites to translate their content into over 60 languages, and which was previously reviewed here, received an investment from IV Holdings, resulting in a 300% increase in the Company’s post money valuation.
Dakwak was launched in July 2010 by Waheed Barghouthi, and was incubated by Oasis500 in March 2011.  Waheed Barghouthi is currently CTO at the company, with fellow techie Zaid Amireh in the CEO role.

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Arab Mobile Advertising Startup Noqoush Raises $3 Million

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Noqoush Mobile Media Group, an Arab mobile advertising and mobile media monetization startup, announced concluding its first 3 million dollar investment round a couple of weeks ago.

In a press release, the company stated that a group of Arab and Foreign angel investors invested in its technical capabilities and future visions aiming at developing a full-fledged mobile advertising platform and mobile media monetization solutions targeting the massive mobile growth in the Middle East.

This first round of investment is aimed at providing the company with the required liquidity to enhance its capabilities, boost its growth, and attract the needed skills and competences to meet the increasing demand on its mobile media solutions.

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N2V Adds AqarMap, Qaym And True-Gaming To Their Portfolio

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National Net Ventures, better known as N2V, and one of the top internet groups in the Middle East, have been on an investment roll lately, announcing three new investments in regional startups within the past couple of weeks alone.

The three startups cover three different areas, following N2V’s strategy to diversify their portfolio of internet properties and expand regionally and globally to cover new areas of interest for users in the Arab world.

The announced investments were in the following startups: AqarMap, Qaym and True-Gaming.

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Intel Capital Invests In Three Middle East Companies: Nymgo, Jeeran And ShooFeeTV

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The World Economic Forum in Marrakech yesterday witnessed some really interesting news from Intel Capital, which announced 3 new investments in the Middle East; UK-Lebanon based Nymgo, as well as Jordanian companies Jeeran and ShooFeeTV.

This investment marks a second round of investment from Intel Capital in both Jeeran and ShooFeeTV (both also IV Holdings portfolio companies), after the previous investment that was announced in May of last year.

The investment in Nymgo also marks Intel Capital’s expansion of its portfolio in the Arab world to a total of eight companies: Nymgo, Jeeran, ShooFeeTV, Conservus, Pulse Technologies, Vertex Animation Studio, NeuString and Sphere Networks.

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Dubai Silicon Oasis Technology Incubator To Support Startups

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Dubai Silicon Oasis, the integrated free zone technology park, has launched a new big project in the UAE, the ‘DSO Technology Incubator’.

The incubator’s goal is to support new start-ups and encourage entrepreneurs in the field of technology by stimulating the development of successful companies, and chart a new avenue for investment in technology in the Arab region.

The incubator comes as part of DSO’s hi-tech ecosystem and the six technology sectors that remain the focus of the technology free zone.

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Berytech Fund Invests In Panoramic Imaging Startup Dermandar

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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.

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N2V Announces Investment In Emirati Startup Yebab

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YebabNational Net Ventures N2V, one of the top internet groups in the Middle East just announced its investment in Yebab.com, the Arab portal specialized in organizing wedding celebrations in the United Arab Emirates.

Rashid Al Ballaa, CEO of N2V, stated that the project comes in line with the group’s current and future plans to expand its presence at the regional and the international levels. The plan is obviously to enhance the portal’s growth and presence, expanding it into other Arab Gulf countries, and the rest of the Middle East region, establishing it as the most trusted wedding directory in the Arab world.

Yebab.com, which was launched from the UAE in 2009, has proven really successful in the UAE, becoming a leading portal providing a directory of wedding services in the country; including listings for the various suppliers and services from caterers to dressmakers, artists, photographers and traditional musicians. The site shows strong potential to perform just as well and more in other markets around the region.

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US Commits $455 Million For Five MENA Startup Investment Funds

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OPICThe Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), an agency of the US government that invests in businesses in emerging markets, has approved a total of $455 million in financing to support the establishment of five private equity investment funds designed to invest in companies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), in response to an announcement made by President Obama last year. The five funds combined could potentially catalyze more than $2 billion of investment in the MENA region.

At a speech in Cairo in June 2009, President Obama announced that the United States would launch an investment fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries. OPIC responded last October by issuing a call for proposals to manage a Global Technology and Innovation Fund, intended to catalyze private sector investments that promote technological growth in OPIC-eligible countries Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The five funds approved were among 87 responses to the call.

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Middle East Venture Partners Closes US$10 Million Of New Fund

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Middle East Venture PartnersMiddle East Venture Partners (MEVP), a Middle East focused venture capital firm that was launched last year with the goal of covering the early and growth stage funding space in the region, just announced the first close of US$10 million of their new fund, Middle East Venture Fund L.P. (MEVF).

MEVP’s fundraising goal is to exceed US$20 Million in total funds under management, with their mission being to focus on funding and building world-class companies with innovative products and services.

They aim to accomplish this by working closely with entrepreneurs, adding value through their wide network of relationships, providing business strategy and corporate finance advice, adhering to corporate governance best-practices, and building synergies between their portfolio companies and professional services partners.

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