Tag: IV Holdings

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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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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ATH Moves To Invest In Mobile Technology In The Arab World

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Accelerator Technology HoldingsAccelerator Technology Holdings (ATH) has announced that it is working on establishing a company to fund investment in mobile technology in the Arab region.

ATH is a holding company that acts through a group of companies established in Jordan and Bahrain to identify, invest in and help build best of breed ventures in the ICT value chain in the Arab world, and that has already funded a number of Arab startups through its IV Holdings venture capital arm.

They’re currently working on raising an initial US$10 million in funds, after which they will move on to hiring a management team to launch and run this new company.

They are particularly looking at areas like security and authentication, based on their expectations that financial transactions over mobile platforms will become very widespread in the region in the future, especially with several of the region’s big mobile network operators launching mobile payment initiatives recently.

This new company will operate as a cross between venture capitalist and commercial investor, building ties and working with foreign companies to bring new mobile technologies to the region. They’ve already started talking to businesses in the UK, Switzerland and Norway about bringing their mobile products to the Arab world.

# Source: The National

Intel Capital Invests In Two Jordanian Companies Jeeran And ShooFeeTV

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Intel
Jeeran
ShooFeeTV

In a joint press conference today in Amman, Jordan, Intel Capital‘s latest investments in the Arab internet scene were announced.

These new investments from Intel Capital are in Jordanian internet companies Jeeran, one of the leading user generated content portals in the Arab world, and ShooFeeTV, a free online Arabic television guide. Both companies are also IV Holdings portfolio companies.

This comes among Intel Capital’s ongoing push in the region, supporting local entrepreneurship in the Middle East and funding companies in the internet and technology sectors through its $50 million Intel Capital Middle East and Turkey Fund, which is aimed to assist the companies in pursuing regional growth and development plans in addition to extending their product offerings.

Under the umbrella of this fund, Intel continues to increase its investment in four key areas: local entrepreneurship, education, digital accessibility and specialized technical competencies, to help promote technology skills, knowledge transfer and jobs creation.

As has become custom for most such investments in the Arab world, the size of these investments has not been disclosed.

Conservus International Wins Red Herring 100 Europe Award

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ConservusRed Herring recently announced that Conservus International was named a winner of the Red Herring 100 Europe, an award given to the top 100 private technology companies based in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region each year.

Conservus International is responsible for the conceptualization, design and development of a digital targeted advertising medium known as the MyConservus Portal.

The MyConservus Portal is an e-concierge service which highlights services available at a single location and provides advertisers with direct access to potential consumers while generating revenue from these advertisements.

Conservus International has similar e-concierge portals that can be used in the Hospitality, Business and Community sectors, and seeks to expand the MyConservus portal’s reach internationally by entering into potential franchise discussions with technology companies.

Conservus was one of the three UAE based technology companies that got an investment from Intel Capital earlier this year, and are also an IV Holdings portfolio company.

Red Herring’s lists of top private companies are an important part of the publication’s tradition of identifying new and innovative technology companies and entrepreneurs. Companies like Google, eBay, and Skype were spotted in their early days by Red Herring editors, and touted as leaders that would change the way we live and work.

Content Syndicate Announces Investment By IV Holdings

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Content Syndicate
IV Holdings

Content Syndicate has officially announced that it has received strategic investment from Interactive Ventures Holding Company (“IV Holdings”), a leading venture capital firm, focused on internet and interactive companies, and based out of Amman, Jordan.

The funding will be used to support Content Syndicate’s rapid growth and development of its content services platform.

“In its private beta alone, Content Syndicate, with its unique and disruptive business model, as well as its dynamic management track record, impressed us. More importantly, the strong validation the company has received from major customers and publishers, combined with our investment strategy focused on the development of content syndication in our region, made Content Syndicate a great fit. Very few early-stage companies have this kind of amazing traction and robust business model,” said Fawaz H. Zu’bi, Chairman of IV Holdings.

Content Syndicate’s patent-pending platform helps publishers to commission, buy, sell, syndicate content in more than 200 languages. With no entry-level costs, coupled with its ‘pay for performance’ model, Content Syndicate helps publishers to monetize their content further and minimizing the inefficiency, thereby generating additional revenues and cutting costs. The company intends to extend its service to support other media – audio, video and mobile content in 2009.

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IV Holdings Invests In Media & Advertising Company MediaScope

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MediaScopeInteractive Ventures Holding Company (“IV Holdings”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Accelerator Technology Holdings (“ATH”), has become a strategic financial investor in MediaScope Ltd, a pioneering digital marketing and publishing company based in Jordan with operations across the Middle East.

Founded in 1994 by Jordanian entrepreneur Zeid Nasser, MediaScope holds a leadership position in media and advertising consultancy and publishing in its home market, and has recently expanded its business model to cater to online publishing, digital marketing and sales services.

“With global online adspend expected to reach over US$60 billion in 2011, MediaScope holds the potential of driving the growth of this industry within our region, especially as Internet penetration, entrepreneurial start-ups, and market confidence in online communications continue to grow across the Arab World”, said Fawaz H. Zu’bi, Chairman of IV Holdings. “With this investment, MediaScope will be able to leverage its acquired digital sales and marketing expertise to emerge as a leading regional digital media network.“

One of MediaScope’s most prominent products is mediaME.com, the Middle East’s first and leading user-generated portal for advertising and media professionals, which boasts over 4,500 registered professionals, with influence in key advertising markets in the Arabian Gulf and Levant.

Commenting on the partnership, Zeid Nasser, Founder and CEO of MediaScope, added that “We are proud to join this fraternity of forward-looking media and technology businesses, under the IV Holdings banner. We were looking for more than just funding, and we have found the industry-specific understanding and daily involvement we were seeking.”

“This year could be a defining one for the online advertising industry across the world, but particularly in the Middle East, as digital media could flourish through its cost effectiveness and unparalleled reach, amidst a slowdown in other forms of media expenditure. We at MediaScope, through our digital media products and services, will be championing an industry shift towards digital and serving the market from a new base in the Gulf, in addition to our home base in the Levant,” concluded Mr. Nasser.

ShooFeeTV Free Arab TV Guide Service Officially Launched

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ShooFeeTVShooFeeTV, a free online Arabic television guide, has officially been launched as a useful resource for TV fans, allowing them access to the program grids for the 120 most popular channels, carried by NileSat and ArabSat.

ShooFeeTV has been under development for some time now, recently going public with a beta while they ironed out the final details before this release. But they’ve already been syndicating content to Maktoob’s TV Guide section well before the launch.

The site holds a wealth of information revolving around Arab TV channels, their programming, details about the different shows, movies and actors (both Arab and foreign); and this information is provided in a number of different ways, to make it as easy as possible for the user to find what they’re looking for quickly.
Short news features about popular programs and actors are provided by the ShooFeeTV team too. 

Photos and videos from the world of television are also made available that users can view and share with their friends. ShooFeeTV users can add comments, vote in weekly entertainment polls and participate in discussion forums and television-related blogs available on the site.

From the beginning, the site recognizes which country a user is located in, and automatically sets the programming grid to their local time, eliminating any painful time conversions.
To further personalize their use of the website, users can log on on and create their own listings grid featuring their favorite channels, using the ‘My ShooFeeTV’ feature.

ShooFeeTV screenshot

The website features selected programs highlighted by the site’s independent editorial team, as well as the most popular programs, as ranked by users of the service.

ShooFeeTV also provides a podcast, which in three minutes each time takes viewers one week ahead, highlighting upcoming movies, sports events and television shows. The podcast will also be available on iTunes.

ShooFeeTV doesn’t stop at the online side of things; taking things a step further to distribute their content through a number of other channels. For example, they plan to distribute a special version of the podcast to radio stations who wish to provide TV programming to their listeners; mobile services giving users access to TV listings on their mobile phones should be coming soon; deals are being pursued to syndicate their content to other portals, newspapers and magazines; and a satellite TV channel featuring Arab TV listings is part of the plan.

ShooFeeTV was launched from Jordan; it was founded by entrepreneur Amjad Tadros. 
Accelerator Technology Holdings (ATH), through their IV Holdings arm, announced their investment in the startup earlier this year.

# ShooFeeTV