Capital firm invests in five enterprises

Middle East Venture Partners raises number of its investments to ten

Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP) has announced five new investments. The Middle East-focused venture capital firm invested in three new companies, Anghami, Laimoon.com, and Box & Automation Solutions (BAS). It made a second round investment in PinPay and Mezzabites Technologies (or Falafel Games).

“The investment amounts (by MEVP alone) all ranged between $350,000 and $600,000,” according to Walid Hanna, Managing Partner at MEVP. MEVP had partner investors in each of the five investments.

Anghami is a music-streaming mobile and web service targeting the Arab World. MEVP’s investment in it was a fifty-fifty undertaking with Turkey-based venture capital firm.

Laimoon.com is a job search engine in the UAE. MEVP partnered with an institutional UAE-based investor for this investment.

BAS is a firm specialized in cash management solutions via the SWIFT network. The investment in BAS was a partnership between MEVP and Sigma Gestion, a French SME fund.

Falafel Games is a firm which designs and produces Arabic content online games. MEVP partnered with the Dubai-based media group MBC for the investment in Falafel. This is the second time MEVP has invested in this firm. MEVP had partnered with Chinese business angels in the first investment in Falafel in February 2011.

PinPay is a Lebanon-based company which provides mobile banking services. This is MEVP’s second investment in PinPay. MEVP partnered with Bank Med for this round. MEVP had partnered with Bank Audi in its first investment in PinPay in October 2010.

“We look for scalable business models that develop quickly and have good growth potential,” Hanna said. MEVP has so far made ten investments. The new investments raised the number of companies in MEVP’s portfolio to eight.

According to Hanna, the technology sector has proved to be a good investment target over the last few years. “Out of our ten investments, seven are in the ICT fields,” said Hanna.

Reported by Hanadi Chami