Oasis 500, A New ICT Seed Capital Fund For Jordan’s Startups

KAFDKing Abdullah II Fund for Development (KAFD) in Jordan is planning to launch a new ICT seed capital fund in two months with the aim of solving the problem of innovative new startups in the country that need to secure some early stage funding.

The new fund will be called Oasis 500, and the goal is for it to provide an initial capital of between $50,000 and $100,000 to 500 startups.  It will be mainly focused on funding new ideas, especially in media, online, content, applications and the service industry.

At this point, it seems that it’s still undecided though whether the fund will be expanded and made accessible to startups from outside Jordan.

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Int@j Introduces 20 Jordanian ICT Companies to Intel Capital

int@j

Intel

Int@j, the Information Technology Association of Jordan, recently conducted an event with Intel Capital, the venture capital investment arm of Intel Corporation, including more than 20 companies from the ICT community in Jordan.

The event focused on introducing the Jordanian ICT sector to Intel Capital and sharing various business aspects and relations among the various ICT sector companies and Intel.

Since its establishment as an ICT industry-support association in 2000, Int@j has been exerting a lot of efforts aiming at advancing the Jordanian ICT sector. Int@j has been looking for various partnerships with different institutions on the local, regional and international levels aiming at creating better ICT industry in Jordan, increasing the awareness of ICT services and products and stressing on the benefits of integrating ICT in other sectors.

The meeting included one-to-one presentations by member companies of int@j where they presented their plans, products, services and solutions to Intel Capital focusing on local capabilities, companies’ talented resources and value added services blended together towards positioning Jordan as the regional ICT leader and point of access.

Intel Capital has been quite active in the region lately, as part of its ongoing push to support local entrepreneurship in the Middle East and fund companies in the internet and technology sectors through its $50 million Intel Capital Middle East and Turkey Fund, which is aimed at assisting the companies in pursuing regional growth and development plans in addition to extending their product offerings.

Feroz Sanaulla, Intel Capital’s Director of Middle East, Turkey, and Africa said “’Intel Capital has a history of pioneering successful technology investments in developing markets to foster growth and innovation. We believe Jordanian ICT companies are well positioned in the region and we are keen on helping them drive technology adoption locally and identify new business opportunities globally.”