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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 its presence at the regional and the international levels. The plan is obviously to enhance the portal’s growth and presence, expanding it into other Arab Gulf countries, and the rest of the Middle East region, establishing it as the most trusted wedding directory in the Arab world.

Yebab.com, which was launched from the UAE in 2009, has proven really successful in the UAE, becoming a leading portal providing a directory of wedding services in the country; including listings for the various suppliers and services from caterers to dressmakers, artists, photographers and traditional musicians. The site shows strong potential to perform just as well and more in other markets around the region.

Yebab co-founder, Murshed Mohamed said that this investment will enable the team to improve the service and upgrade its quality for users

N2V who also hold HawaaWorld.com in their portfolio, see a big possibility of establishing a seamless integration between the two services, in order to offer bigger value to Arab women online.

This investment in Yebab comes as part of N2V’s new investment program that targets early and growth stage web ventures around the region, mainly Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan and Egypt.

National Net Ventures (N2V) is an internet holding company, whose core business is to develop online and interactive web-based ventures. N2V invests capital in a variety of ventures from startups to more established companies; also offering infrastructure, resources, experience and know-how to these companies to accelerate their growth.

The amount of the investment hasn’t been disclosed publicly.

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 (MENA), in response to an announcement made by President Obama last year. The five funds combined could potentially catalyze more than $2 billion of investment in the MENA region.

At a speech in Cairo in June 2009, President Obama announced that the United States would launch an investment fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries. OPIC responded last October by issuing a call for proposals to manage a Global Technology and Innovation Fund, intended to catalyze private sector investments that promote technological growth in OPIC-eligible countries Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The five funds approved were among 87 responses to the call.

The investment funds approved by the Board were:

Riyada Enterprise Development Growth Capital Fund
$150 million in financing have been approved to support the fund, which will invest in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) throughout the MENA region, particularly companies which stand to benefit from investment in technology.

Target countries for the fund include Egypt, Turkey, Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Oman, Algeria and Morocco.

Abraaj Capital Group; which was formed in 2002 and with offices in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; was selected as fund manager. Abraaj is often credited with establishing one of the first private equity funds based in the MENA region and has raised $7.0 billion since inception.

The fund has a target capitalization of $500 million.

Accelerator Technology and Innovation Capital Partners
Up to $25 million have been approved to support the fund, which will provide growth-stage financing to MENA companies in the digital content, internet services, mobile applications, mobile financial services, technology services and platforms, next generation media, entertainment and software development sectors. Target countries for the fund include Jordan, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia among other Arab and Islamic countries.

AcceleratorTech Capital Partners; which is owned by Accelerator Technology Holdings, a Jordan-based company widely credited for creating a venture capital industry in the region; was selected as fund manager.

The fund has a target capitalization of $75 million.

KIPCO Opportunity Fund
Up to $150 million in financing have been approved to support the fund, which expects to invest primarily in companies which are positioned to benefit from rapid economic growth, developing infrastructure and maturing financial markets in the MENA region, including in the financial services, media, infrastructure and information technology sectors.

Target countries for the fund are Jordan, Lebanon, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, although the fund may also invest in other countries in the MENA region.

KIPCO Private Equity; which is owned by Kuwait Projects Company (Holding) K.S.C. (Closed), a Kuwait-based company which to date has made over 60 investments valued at approximately $23 billion; was selected as fund manager.

The fund has a target capitalization of $1 billion.

Citadel Capital Joint Investment Fund
Up to $100 million in financing have been approved to support the fund, which will invest in companies in various stages of maturity, including traditional buyouts, growth capital investments, turnaround situations and greenfield projects. Sectors of interest include waste management, transportation and logistics, manufacturing, and production of building materials and alternative energy.

The fund will invest a significant amount of its capital in Egyptian companies which will be used as platform investments to expand throughout the region, although the fund is designed to invest throughout the MENA region, as well as East Africa and the Persian Gulf.

Citadel Capital Management Limited; a wholly owned subsidiary of Citadel Capital SAE, an Egypt-based company which is one of the leading private equity investment firms in the MENA region; was selected as fund manager. Citadel Capital currently manages a total of $3.7 billion in equity and has completed investments in 19 platform ompanies.

The new fund has a target capitalization of $500 million.

Siraj Palestine Fund I
Up to $30 million in financing have been approved to support the fund, which will invest in start-ups and SMEs in the Palestinian Territories, and potentially in larger companies with growth potential. The fund will focus on companies with the potential to become market leaders in the Palestinian Territories or expand their operations internationally, primarily in the MENA region.

Sectors of interest to the fund include information and communication technology services, agriculture, clean technology, healthcare, education, manufacturing and financial services.

Siraj Fund Management Company; a Ramallah-based company owned by Massar International, another Palestinian company that manages a network of 15 subsidiaries operating in real estate development, financial services, and corporate business development; was selected as fund manager.

The fund has a target capitalization of $80 million.

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 exceed [...]

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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 they [...]

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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)). The [...]

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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 contact with potential investors
- 29% said it was allocating and finding the right investors
- 18% think it was measuring the seriousness of the investors
- 8% believe it was the cost of connecting with investors (traveling and attending conferences …etc)

The remaining 7% cited other obstacles.

What do you think? Do you share the same view? What solutions do you see for these obstacles?

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.

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.

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 and Baraka Group in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week (a yearly event taking place in November in over 80 countries worldwide), and will be held over two days, full of participatory panels, keynotes, workshops, demonstrations, and networking.

The event will be taking place at Bayt El-Tabib Conference Center in Beirut, Lebanon, on November 17-18th. The plan is for this event to be the first in a series of other 4SITE Forums to take place around the region.

The keynote speakers at the event include Joi Ito, the CEO of Creative Commons, John Wilbanks, the CEO of Science Commons, and Rabea Ataya, the CEO of Bayt.com.

Besides the fixed program, there are some slots in the schedule that are planned for Barcamp-style presentations and demos by the participants.

The full program schedule for the event can be viewed online at the official website here: 4SITE Forum Schedule. Tickets to the event can be bought here.

Along with the event, 4SITE Forum and Hibr are also hosting the Global Innovation Tournament (GIT), an initiative of Global Entrepreneurship Week, in Lebanon, with this year’s challenge being to come up with a way to make saving money fun, in light of the current global recession.

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, it will largely target companies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as well as global companies. The fund’s amount has not been finalised yet.

The fund is another means to attract research and development and manufacturing companies to set up a base in Dubai Silicon Oasis. And they are already talking to a number of companies to establish manufacturing in Dubai Silicon Oasis, with a concentration on start-ups.

Even though the focus is on the Middle East and North Africa, there are some start-ups in Europe and North America that they are looking at for potential investments, in order to get them to open higher-engineering offices in Dubai Silicon Oasis.

Earlier, the authority announced a budget of Dh25 billion set aside for investment in the coming years at DSOA. The whole project has already attracted foreign investments worth Dh1.4 billion. It has set aside about Dh500 million to invest in start-ups that will be spent over the next five years.

Additionally, private investment into real estate at DSOA is Dh13 billion, while Dh10 billion is budgeted for the third phase of the project’s development.

According to Milhem, the authority is in talks with several companies and should be making some decisions and announcing some deals soon.

[Source: Gulf News]

twofour54 ibtikar, the media industry funding and support pillar of twofour54 Abu Dhabi, has launched twofour54 ibtikar: creative lab, a grant funding scheme aimed at engaging with young Arabs and stimulating creativity in order to build a long term sustainable media industry in the Arab world.

twofour54 ibtikar: creative lab offers grant funding and business support to talented Arab individuals from the UAE and across the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region, helping great media and entertainment ideas that would benefit from seed funding, development guidance and planning to get off the ground.

It offers funds ranging from US$1,000 to US$50,000 for creative and original ideas across all media platforms including television, radio, film, publishing, online, mobile, music, gaming and animation.

twofour54 ibtikar: creative lab and young Arab funding recipients will engage in regular brainstorming sessions to develop ideas into fully fledged creative projects. A key part of this collaborative process will include budget creation and training in project execution and support throughout.

Tarek Ghattas, twofour54 ibtikar: creative lab manager, added: “We want people to come forward with their media and entertainment ideas. We are looking for passion and originality and there is no such thing as a bad idea. This is an opportunity for young Arabs to unleash their inner creativity and have a go at turning vision into reality – coming to us means never having to look back and wonder what you could have been.”

twofour54 ibtikar: creative lab expands twofour54 ibtikar’s funding portfolio, which also includes ibtikar ventures, an investment fund that focuses on start-up and early stage media and entertainment initiatives.

Seedcamp has announced the six winners of this year’s edition of Seedcamp Week, after an intense week of mentoring in London by a diverse mentor, investor and entrepreneur network.

Among the six winners is Jordanian startup Talasim, an online social network and photo sharing service for comedy/funny content, which was founded by Zeid Koudsi and Sabri Hakim, and is one of the projects leading Arab UGC portal Jeeran invested in and incubated.

Each of the six winning teams will be receiving a €50k investment from Seedcamp and active support over the next three months to help develop their products and companies. In return Seedcamp should be taking a stake worth between 5-10% of each company.

These next three months will be spent in London, with the winning teams working with the Seedcamp team on building the product and company together, and with the teams provided access to services worth 2-3 times the invested €50K, with the goal of helping grow and nurture the teams, and putting in-depth focus on developing the product and business.

During the course of these three months, the groups will also have an opportunity to take advantage of the same group of experts that participated in the Seedcamp week through weekly dinners, topical lunches, conferences, and continued mentorship on various issues. They’ll also get to demo their products to other groups from Seedcamp as well as potential investors in two events along the way.

The other 5 winners are: Boxed Ice (UK), Brainient (Romania), Codility (Poland), Erply (Estonia) and Patients Know Best (UK).

A new poll has gone live on StartUpArabia, you can find it on the sidebar on the right or vote straight from this post.

This poll is more targeted at startups and entrepreneurs who have sought funding for their project/business at one point or another, and tries to determine what kinds of obstacles they faced while doing that.

What major obstacle did you face while looking to fund your project?

Feel free to further expand on your response in the comments section of this post.

A group of 10 Angel investors gathered in Jordan to attend the first match-making event for the newly created Bedaya Angel Network, where 20 pre-selected entrepreneurs got to pitch their projects to the investors.

Entrepreneurs were given 20 minutes to present their project and explain why they were looking for investment. Presentations were followed by another 20 minutes with questions from the attending Business Angels about their project’s details and concept, business development, the market for their project and what any eventually invested money would be used for.

The Bedaya Angel Network initiative was launched only a few months ago, in May of 2009, and has attracted over 30 important figures from the Jordanian investment, business and economic development communities.

The founding institutions of the Bedaya Angel Network are: the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship, the iPark business incubator and the Arab Science and Technology Foundation. It is supported by the European program Medibtikar.

The goal behind the creation of Bedaya is to offer national financing vehicles for innovative business startups as part of the El Hassan Science City’s mandate to foster knowledge-based enterprises with a promising potential for growth. The network will be offering investments for early stage start-ups with a focus on science and technology.

The process starts with the selection of entrepreneurs who are looking for funding and giving the ones that are most ready the opportunity to pitch their projects to an audience of business angels at match-making events that should be held every 2 months.

Before pitching to investors, the entrepreneurs received special full-day training and coaching by Mr. Nelson Grey, a seasonal expert on business angel investments.

The next Bedaya pitching session is planned to happen next October.

[Business Angels are private individuals willing to invest their own money into high growth potential startups; not only offering money to the companies they invest in, but also a lot of experience and their personal business networks.]

D1G just announced its closing of a first round of financing; that will go towards funding the site, its expansion and its infrastructure on the Internet.

According to the press release issued by the company, this first round has attracted a number of regional businessmen and international experts in the internet industry to join the site’s management.

Commenting on this round, Abdul-Majid Qasem, D1G Executive Director, said that the first round of investment was able to attract the necessary funding for the next phase, and that the amount raised would help the company improve its products and services to achieve the board of directors’ vision and aspirations.

He also noted that the next round of strategic investment negotiations with some of the leading capital and private equity firms in the region is currently ongoing.

D1G was founded in May 2006, and according to the numbers released by the company have been able to build a community of more than 3 million people per month over the past years, generating more than 20 million impressions and over 15 million online monthly videos. They also claim to have grown 100% in number of users during the first half of 2009 alone.

D1G’s growth has been both organic and through acquisitions, and it seems they’ll be sticking to the same approach for growth in the future.

Just a couple of months ago, D1G announced that Usama Fayyad, Ex- Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President at Yahoo!, had been appointed Executive Chairman of D1G to help develop the company and take it into its next stage of growth. He was already on their board of directors since September 2008.

D1G also announced that prominent Jordanian business man and investor Karim Kawar will become an Active Advisor on the company’s board of directors. Karim Kawar, who had previously served as Jordan’s Ambassador to the US, is currently advising a number of regional capital and technology companies.