2009 – StartUpArabia

Arab Auction Portal Souq.com Launches Operations In Egypt

December 22, 2009December 22, 2009 MMM 1 Comment

Souq.com, the Arab online auctions company, that is a subsidiary of Jabbar Internet Group, has officially launched operations in another country in the region: Egypt.

The Egyptian version of Souq.com is available in both Arabic and English, hoping to tap into one of the biggest internet markets in the Arab world in terms of number of users with over 12 Million internet users as of June 2009 according to ITU numbers (15.9% out of a population of nearly 80 Million).

Souq.com has been cautious not to attempt to grow too fast and launch the service for the whole region at one go, preferring to set up operations country by country, having staff on the ground in each country to manage the system and make sure users (both sellers and buyers) get the most out of the system and are fully satisfied, also aiming to overcome any trust or security fears.

A number of listings have already started showing up on the site, and one of the offers the service is currently giving is free pickup and delivery in Cairo and Alexandria.

With this launch, Souq.com now operates in four countries: United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and now Egypt.

Photojonet Shuts Down, To Be Relaunched Under New Name

December 19, 2009December 19, 2009 MMM 4 Comments

Photojonet, the online photo service that was launched from Jordan, to provide digital photo printing services at good prices, and was previously reviewed here, was shut down all of a sudden a few days ago. The service’s twitter account then promised a new version would be up under a new name soon.

We got in touch with the CEO and co-founder of the service, Issam Hijazi, and he gave us some insight into what’s happening.

Photojonet was initially founded by Issam Hijazi, who started work on the project as part of his graduation project, and Rami Al-Natsheh who came up with the initial idea and invested in it. The service was launched in July 2009, and apparently just a few months into the life of the project, some differences started surfacing between the co-founders related to managing the project, that finally led them to decide to go their separate ways. Hence, the service was shut down.

Anyway, according to Issam Hijazi, he has been working on getting resources and relationships back together to relaunch a similar service under a new name. The code is currently being re-engineered, as well as the whole infrastructure for the web application.

A number of new features are being implemented too, as well as the use of other new technologies. The plans are also to expand it to beyond just photo prints, to include an online store covering more photo related products.

Issam shared the name of the new service with us, but asked for it to remain confidential for the time being. We’ll bring you more information about the new site once it’s launched.

This story though also highlights one of the challenges that face entrepreneurs when launching a startup, and that is working with the right co-founders and clarifying all the important details from the beginning, so as not to run into any big hurdles like this while the focus should be on building and growing the business.

TwitVid Launches Real-Time Video Search, Virtual Gifts & Analytics

December 17, 2009December 17, 2009 MMM 1 Comment

TwitVid, the service that enables people to easily and quickly post their videos for sharing on Twitter, and that was previously reviewed here, just recently announced the launch of a number of new interesting features.

The new set of announced features is as follows:

Real-time video search: Over the past period, with the continuing accelerated pace at which news and content is shared online, a lot of focus has been going to services that can keep up and offer real-time access to that information and the possibility to search through it. TwitVid attempts to crack that for video, by offering the ability to search through video content posted on Twitter through it in real-time.

Virtual gifts: Virtual goods have emerged as a very effective means of monetization for online games and services. Just a look at some of the companies selling virtual goods through their applications and games on Facebook, and the deals that have been happening around them recently, show how hot that space currently is.
TwitVid debuted its gifting service in November, through which they enable users to buy and send gifts to one another.

Analytics reports: In a bid to offer more value to people who tweet many videos, and who would like more insight on how well their videos are doing, TwitVid has launched a new analytics feature that shows the number of views for a video, its top linkers, the evolution of traffic over time, as well as where the traffic is coming from. Traffic can also be displayed by geographic location and internet domain.

TwitVid has found a lot of success as a platform of choice for video uploaders on Twitter, even attracting a number of high profile and celebrity users along the way.

TwitVid is a product of EatLime, a Sunnyvale based company, founded by Mohammad Al Adham from Jordan and Adil Lalani from Pakistan. The company previously secured a round of funding from investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Amidzad Partners, and XG Ventures.

CERT-Wharton Entrepreneurial Planning & Innovation Competition (EPIC)

December 15, 2009December 15, 2009 MMM

For the first time in the Middle East, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Centre of Excellence for Applied Research and Training (CERT), have partnered to launch a business plan competition for young entrepreneurs.

The CERT-Wharton “Entrepreneurial Planning and Innovation Competition (EPIC)” is open to all students from accredited academic institutions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and all Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) alumni.

The top eight teams will share US $50,000 in cash prizes to jump start their businesses, with the winning team receiving US $20,000.

The CERT-Wharton EPIC business plan competition offers students a comprehensive, four-month platform to help them gain the entrepreneurial knowledge and expert feedback needed to launch their new business ideas.

CERT-Wharton EPIC helps teams develop their business plans in both a collaborative and competitive environment.

The competition is structured as follows:

Teams need to submit an executive summary of their business plan. (Deadline: December 20th, 2009)
These submissions are evaluated and up to 25 teams will be selected – known as the “Top 25”.
These “Top 25” submissions will be further evaluated and the top eight teams will be selected to participate in the finals – known as the “Great Eight” finalists.
The “Great Eight” finalists will prepare and submit a full business plan for evaluation.
The “Great Eight” finalists will present a formal pitch to a panel of judges. Winners will then be selected.

For further information and to register, check out the official website: CERT-Wharton “Entrepreneurial Planning and Innovation Competition (EPIC)”

LiveTweeting, Real-Time Event Coverage With Crowdsourced Translation

December 9, 2009December 9, 2009 MMM 1 Comment

LiveTweeting is a new real-time interactive web application that was launched as a tool for multi-language live coverage of events around the world, based around the popular micro blogging service twitter.

The way it works is that a group of people present at a certain event would tweet their updates covering the event as it happens, while on the other hand a number of multi-lingual twitter users would simultaneously translate and tweet the updates in another language. Both versions, the original and the translation, are aggregated on the LiveTweeting site.

People following the live coverage of the event (both original and translation) on the service are able to vote on the tweets they like by starring them. No user registration is currently required to follow an event’s coverage or to vote on the updates for it.

LiveTweeting was officially launched earlier today (Dec 9th 2009), just in time to be able to cover the Le Web 2009 conference in English and have its translation crowdsourced into Arabic.

The idea behind the service was conceived by Samer Karam (Lebanon), developed by Beshr Kayali (Syria) and designed by Maya Zankoul (Lebanon). Everything was put together over the span of one week.

# LiveTweeting

LancersCafe: A New Freelance & Outsourcing Portal For The Arab World

December 8, 2009December 8, 2009 MMM 6 Comments

LancersCafe is a new freelance and outsourcing portal for the Arab world, launched to manage the relation between companies and individuals who need to hire a freelancer to get a job done and the freelancers themselves.

The idea is one that has been applied globally a number of times by sites like RentACoder and Elance. LancersCafe brings the concept to the region.

The idea is pretty simple, a company needs a certain job done but they don’t have the need to hire a full-time employee for it, so they look at contracting someone to do that job for them. On the other hand, you have freelancers, people who take on individual projects, and who are always on the lookout for new projects they can take on to make their living.

LancersCafe aims to be a platform to connect the companies looking for people to take on certain jobs for them with the freelancers looking for those jobs, and to govern the whole relationship between them so that the projects goes as smoothly as possibly, reducing the possibility of any problems arising from either side throughout the project lifecycle.

The service is free for both companies (buyers) and freelancers (providers) to join. The buyers get to post their project for free, listing the skills they need, the timeline for their project, their budget range and other project requirements; Providers can build their profile and portfolio, search for projects and then send in their proposals, that the buyer can review, evaluate and negotiate, before making their choice.

LancersCafe also offers both buyers and providers special online training courses on the best way to use the system and get their work done online.

The site covers 175 specialties, starting from Data Entry and passing by programming, web design, article writing, graphic design, fashion design and up to Marketing, accountancy, engineering and landscaping and a lot of other professions.

LancersCafe was launched from Egypt, and is open for companies and freelancers from around the Middle East, offering companies the opportunity to get their work done cost-effectively, and freelancers the chance to find projects easily and make more money.

Abraaj Capital Acquires Riyada Ventures To Lead New SME Push

November 24, 2009November 24, 2009 MMM 4 Comments

Abraaj Capital, the Dubai-based private equity firm has announced that it has signed a deal to fully acquire Riyada Ventures, the venture capital firm based in Jordan.

The acquisition is at the core of a new push by Abraaj into the small and medium enterprise (SME) space, which is aimed at stimulating and supporting entrepreneurial activity in this vital segment of the MENA region’s economies.

Riyada Ventures, which was set up in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in 2005, and has an office in Cairo, just won the ‘Venture Capital Firm of the Year’ award for a second straight year at the Private Equity World MENA 2009 conference in Dubai just a few days ago.

Following the acquisition, Riyada will be folded into Abraaj and renamed Riyada Enterprise Development Company (REDCO), with Khaldoon Tabaza, the Riyada chief executive, continuing at the helm.

This new subsidiary will be investing growth capital in small and medium-sized businesses, with plans for Abraaj to provide $200m of its own capital, with expectations that amount will grow much larger.

The company will provide what Arif Naqvi, the chief executive of Abraaj, called “patriotic capital” through partnerships with governments in the region to foster the expansion of small and medium-sized businesses.

REDCO will try to follow on the footsteps of Abraaj’s earlier SME successes, including the shipping and logistics firm Aramex and internet company Maktoob, which was recently acquired by Yahoo!.

For companies in which it invests, Abraaj will provide a dedicated back-office platform to offer both strategic support services and operational functionality to facilitate growth plans and provide mentorship to the young entrepreneurs in the SME space, which comprises more than 80% of economic activity across the MENA region.

The acquisition comes at an active period for Abraaj, which also announced it had raised $375 Million, increasing its capital to $1.5 Billion, aiming for property investments in the region and looking to broaden its asset management offerings.

Egyptian Mrrha Acquired By UAE Company Creative Solutions

November 18, 2009November 18, 2009 MMM

Mrrha, an Arab online service that was launched from Egypt around a simple idea to allow users to upload a file and mirror it directly on up to five popular uploading sites of choice, has been acquired by Emirati company Creative Solutions.

Mrrha was launched in November 2008 by brothers Mahmoud and Ahmed El-Masoudy from Egypt, aiming to make the process of uploading files to the internet for sharing purposes and mirroring them on the most famous file uploading services a lot easier and faster.

Mrrha depends on a parallel uploading mechanism to make this possible, which means that the file will be uploaded to Mrrha and sent to the other uploading sites at the same time, making it so that the user won’t have to wait until it’s uploaded to each site.

Creative Solutions, the acquiring company, is a web development company founded by Khamis AlSharyani in 2008, based in Alain (UAE), that provides web consulting, solutions and services for its clients. The company is a subsidiary of Bin Majed group.

The details of the deal have not been made public.

UAE Based NeuString Receives Investment From Intel Capital

November 18, 2009November 18, 2009 MMM 2 Comments

Intel Capital, Intel Corporation’s global investment arm, earlier announced an investment in NeuString, a leading UAE-based telecommunications analyst software company, further reaffirming Intel Capital’s commitment to investing in the region.

The funding from Intel Capital is to assist NeuString in pursuing regional growth and development plans in addition to extending the company’s product offerings.

NeuString is a billing software company dedicated to delivering predictive analytics solutions and consulting services to mobile network operators to help them achieve greater financial performance.

NeuString currently has offices in the United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Russia, and Ukraine.

The investment in NeuString follows five previous Intel Capital investments in the Middle East this year: two Jordan-based digital content companies − Jeeran and ShooFeeTV; and three UAE-based technology companies – Conservus International FZ-LLC, Pulse Technologies FZ-LLC, and Vertex Animation Studio FZ-LLC.

As has become customary in this part of the world, for some unclear reason, the amount of this investment was yet again not disclosed.

Under the Intel Capital program, Intel plans to continue supporting local entrepreneurship in the Middle East through its investments in education, digital accessibility and specialized technical competencies. The purpose being to help promote technology skills, knowledge transfer and job creation in the region.

Yahoo! Maktoob Acquisition Deal Completed

November 12, 2009November 12, 2009 MMM 2 Comments

The Yahoo! – Maktoob acquisition deal that was announced last August, has officially closed today at noon (UAE time).

It had already been announced upon signing the definitive agreement back in August that the deal was expected to be sealed in the fourth quarter of the year.

So starting noon today, Maktoob.com and all its sub-divisions (including Maktoob Research, Bentelhalal and others) are officially part of Yahoo!, marking the completion of the first major deal of its kind in the region.

The first steps for the company are to work on introducing flagship products like Yahoo! Mail and Instant Messenger in Arabic, as well as the Yahoo! Maktoob Arabic homepage; then to keep moving on to provide other Yahoo! services in Arabic, and help enrich Arabic content online. Other local services for the region will also be considered and developed.

[Full Disclosure: I have personally been working with Maktoob.com ever since the beginning of 2009.]