Tag: Yahoo!

What is your exit strategy?

nagi

As a startup founder of www.loomni.com, I wonder what are the possible exits for my company in the future? It’s a topic I think every founder should really think of. How many other Maktoobs can we really have in the region? It took 10+ years for the exit to happen. And it was a foreign company who acquired an Arabic company. I think it is a bit sad to see that the biggest web acquisition in the region was a foreign acquisition.

Although it was a really awesome story deal for the Maktoob team, it was great to place Arabia on the world map, It gives hope to young founders, but should the biggest web acquisition in Arabia, sized at around $175M (I do not have the accurate figure) – a relative average deal based on US standards – worry Arab founders? Did the Yahoo-Maktoob deal set a valuation ceiling for future acquisitions? Can local Arabic companies hope to exit their companies for higher valuation deals?

The other questions would be, who are the potential acquirers of web startups? Should founders rely on foreign corporations for their exit strategies? Can startup founders hope for any big exits from within the MENA region?

I wonder…

Yahoo! Maktoob Acquisition Deal Completed

MMM 2 Comments
Yahoo!
Maktoob

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.]

Yahoo! Maktoob: It’s Official, Yahoo! Acquiring Largest Arab Community Maktoob

MMM 13 Comments
Yahoo!
Maktoob

After months of rumors and speculation by many in the Arab internet industry, today the news is confirmed and made public officially: Yahoo! is acquiring Maktoob.com, making its big step into the Arab world by acquiring the biggest online Arab community.

A press conference was held at the Fairmont Hotel in Dubai to announce the deal with top executives from Maktoob and the Yahoo! Emerging Markets team.

The deal only involves the Maktoob.com portal and its sub-divisions (including Maktoob Research, Bentelhalal and others), that will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo!.

The other sister companies within the Maktoob Group which are: Souq.com, CashU, Tahadi, Araby and the newly acquired E-marketing MENA (which will be rebranded to Ikoo) are not part of the deal, and they will go on with business as usual under the group’s umbrella.
Following this deal, the group will be rebranding to Jabbar Internet Group (JIG), injected with a $20 million investment, and chaired by Samih Toukan.

The first steps after the deal closing in Q4, will be to work on introducing the Yahoo! Maktoob Arabic homepage, as well as Mail and Instant Messenger in Arabic; then to keep moving on to providing other Yahoo! services in Arabic, and enriching Arabic content online. Other local services for the region will also be considered and developed.

The financial details of the deal have not been made public, although many numbers have been floating around the internet over the past weeks and months, none of which have been confirmed by either companies.

This is the first time in the history of the internet in the Arab world that such a deal has taken place, and promises to take the internet industry in the region to a whole new level; hopefully in terms of quality, content, competition, awareness and investment opportunities.

When looking at other global players, Google chose to open small presences of its own, mainly in the UAE and Egypt, to work on some product concept development, marketing and sales in the region. Microsoft already have a wide existence in the Arab world, but mainly around their big software titles, only recently starting to look online in the Arab world.

Hopefully this deal, as well as Google and Microsoft’s moves in the region, will open the door for more international players to start seriously considering entering the online market in the Arab world, but even more importantly will show local investors the potential that exists in investing in sound internet startup ideas, and that with the region as an important emerging market, there are more exit strategies than they initially thought.

For more information on this, you can check out the story and the press release on Maktoob Business.

[Full Disclosure: I have been a Director of a Maktoob.com division ever since the beginning of 2009, and therefore haven’t been able to report on this story any earlier.]

D1G Appoints Ex-Yahoo! Vice President Usama Fayyad As Executive Chairman

MMM 10 Comments

D1GSocial Networking and video portal site D1G, which allows users to share, discuss, and distribute rich online content, has tapped into the knowledge and expertise of online data mining and data strategist, Dr. Usama Fayyad, to help catalyze the company into its next stage of growth.

Usama FayyadDr. Usama Fayyad served as Yahoo!’s Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President of Research & Strategic Data Solution. Dr. Fayyad was responsible for Yahoo!’s overall data strategy, architecting Yahoos data policies and systems, prioritizing data investments, and managing Yahoos data process infrastructure which processed and mined over 25 Terabytes of data per day resulting from Yahoo!’s over 500 million users globally.

Fayyad was also responsible for the advanced technology arm of Yahoo! in Yahoo! Research — the group that is driving innovation in social systems is Search Technology, in Microeconomics and in monetization technologies. He was also responsible for user targeting and grew ad targeting at Yahoo! by 20-fold from when his company was acquired by Yahoo! in 2004 till he left Yahoo! in later 2008.

Fayyad invested into d1g.com, and has become the company’s new Executive Chairman. His entry into the company should provide great value in helping scale the company’s infrastructure to accommodate increased users’ activity and to grow the business to the next level.

“Arab audiences are really thirsty for new-generation rich content and social media represented by the Web 2.0 offerings of d1g.com. I am very excited about d1g.com. I have been informally advising the firm since its early days, and I am very bullish about their potential to grow and provide some of the most dynamic experiences for their audiences and marketers alike.” said Dr. Fayyad. “Since my departure from Yahoo! in the autumn of 2008, I have been evaluating various investment opportunities in the regional online space, and I was very impressed with the skills, expertise and dedication of the company’s leadership.” added Dr. Fayyad.

The company and Fayyad are hoping that he will play a particularly crucial role in helping the d1g.com management team better monetize the company’s inventory through more targeted ad offerings that allows marketers to dynamically generate ads that target various audience criteria such as geography, demography, and browsing behaviour. He will also help expand the offering to our rapidly growing user base across the entire Arabic speaking world.