National 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 [...]
The 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 [...]
Middle 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 [...]
Ras2Ras, the Yemen-based online social rating and comparison platform, that was previously covered here, has been acquired by Qatari investor Ahmed Alaji. Ras2Ras, which was founded by Amad Almsaodi in 2008, was built around a very simple yet really interesting idea: putting any two comparable things against each other, and letting people vote on which [...]
Abu Dhabi’s twofour54 has recently announced it will be launching a new investment fund called ‘AppsArabia‘, which promotes and supports mobile app development throughout the Middle East and North Africa using the Software Development Kits (SDKs) of all the major mobile and online platforms (e.g. Android (Google), iPhone OS (Apple), BlackBerry, Facebook, OpenSocial and Ovi (Nokia)). [...]
In the latest poll on StartUpArabia, the question that was addressed to the entrepreneur readers was: What major obstacle did you face while looking to fund your project? The result of reader voting came out as follows: Out of 89 readers who responded to the poll: – 37% of them responded that it was initiating [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
4SITE Forum (Investing in Sustainability, Innovation, Technology & Entrepeneurship) is an event being held in Beirut, Lebanon, bringing together over 200 investors, innovators, and entrepreneurs in Lebanon and the Middle East region. The goal of the event is to promote innovation and entrepreneurship towards sustainable economic development and social impact. The event is organized by RootSpace [...]
Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA), the region’s largest integrated technology park, is planning to launch a global technology fund middle of next year. “Some of the investments will be from ourselves, some from local and regional investors and also international investors,” said Ray Milhem, the new chief technology officer of technology investment at DSOA. He said, [...]
