Wamda

Friendshippr regulates informal P2P international shipping; secures $670,000 USD Series A round

Asking friends to ship or bring back an item from overseas is a practice as popular as it is tricky. Especially in this region, with its...

crowdshipping Business Angels collaborative economy

What You Look Like to a Social Network [Infographic]

Facebook makes a lot of us feel warm and fuzzy; if commenting on ‘life event’ photos and smugly stalking friends and family halfway around ...

privacy tumblr twitter

Lebanon

Can a bootstrapping entrepreneur succeed with an electronics e-commerce store in Lebanon?

“I came back to Lebanon to renew my papers then decided to look for opportunities here,” says serial entrepreneur...

lebanon Bootstrapping cash-on-delivery

BitPay founder Tony Gallipi on Bitcoin's bright future [WamdaTV]

BitPay is an easy-to-use platform enabling internet businesses to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. BitPay provides a plugin and makes it...

currency p2p bitpay

Jordanian custom photo album service eyes Gulf Facebook users, B2B expansion

There’s got to be a story behind a company by the name of Cheezu. “I was watching a Japanese movie,” says Tala Haddadin, Cheezu’s Jordani...

cheezu b2c b2b

Startup news ticker: Lebanese search engine replaces reviews with tips and hashtags

Welcome to Wamda's weekly startup news ticker, which will offer quick announcements and stories relevant to the region. If you have a quick...

content ticker Arabic Content

PayPal brings new mobile payment option to rapidly developing East Africa

M-PESA, a mobile payment scheme launched in 2007 by Kenyan mobile network operator Safaricom, has fundamentally changed the way Kenyans...

mobile payments Payment systems Kenya

10 amazing holiday gifts from innovators in the Middle East

Whatever your religious beliefs, we all worship at the altar of buying new things, especially at this time of year. We compiled a list of...

gift gift guide morocco

5 tips for small businesses on Facebook

Jonathan Labin is Facebook's Head of Middle East, Africa, and Pakistan. He contacted us with some tips, based on Facebook's own research,...

small business sme Facebook

Egyptian daily deals site Waffarha confident amidst uncertainty

The recent shutdown of Dare’n’Deal, Egypt’s most popular website for daily deals and group buying, sparked much curiosity about whether the...

E-commerce Daily Deals Egypt

Why e-commerce site Namshi stopped using 'Sukar' as a keyword

In an e-commerce sector that is increasingly competitive in the Middle East, online retailers of all sizes are seeking to enrich their...

sukar Namshi Google

Can SearchinMENA.com raise the funds it needs to build an Alibaba for the Middle East?

[Update: Eureeca has extended SearchinMENA.com's campaign.] After three years of building SearchinMENA.com, Syrian entrepreneur Salim...

SearchinMENA crowdinvestment

PayPal announces regional discounts for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Buyers throughout the Middle East will have access to discounts and sales on US websites this Friday and next Monday, thanks to a new deal...

PayPal

New payment solution in Kuwait wants cloud-based tokens to replace cash registers

Some say that in order to see a new startup ecosystem really take off, you just need to build one billion dollar company. Just one...

Payment systems Payment Gateways

8 leading startups get connected with Silicon Valley at MENA Innovation DemoDay

Despite the instabilities at home, Egyptian startups are gaining global recognition for their innovations lately; it’s not just that I...

techwadi palinno disrupt

Voucher book The Entertainer bets on a new mobile app for global expansion

While daily deals are no longer as popular as they were a few years ago, the prospect of getting more for less is a perennial hit. Voucher...

uae entertainer Dubai

Global

Should entrepreneurs know how to code?

Perfecting your product before testing it in the market is an outdated approach, many have argued. But what if coding a technical...

Lean Methodology Coding Customer Service

Cards & Payments Middle East 2014 in Dubai

Cards & Payments Middle East is one of the region’s largest smart card, payments and ID events. With over 5,000 attendees and 200+ inte...

Payment systems Payment Gateways

6 surprising facts about the future of the internet

Google is dominating the internet, Business Insider Intelligence reveals in a new presentation on 'The Future of Digital.' While the search...

Internet growth Data Google

Celebrities suit up with online tailoring from Dubai

“We’re effectively ‘stealing’ from the Brooks Brothers and Jos. A. Banks of the world,” says Tarig El Sheikh, cofounder of bespoke online s...

Retail Online retail E-commerce

U.A.E

How e-commerce stores are undercutting offline retailers in the UAE [Infographic]

Lower prices are one of the major factors that encourage consumers to shop online, according to a new infographic by price comparison site...

PayPal Infographic E-commerce

MarkaVIP launches new platform, mobile apps, hints at new verticals to come

Regional

Thought Leadership