Tiger Funds Amazon of Dubai

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Souq.com raised $150 million and may seek more funding as part of plans to raise $300 million, citing two people with knowledge of the matter.

It added that the e-commerce business is seeking to capitalize on soaring private valuations and record fundraisings by venture capital firms..

Souq.com, which was established in 2005, is the Middle East’s largest internet-based business. With over 23 million visitors to its website each month, it has more than 400,000 products across categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, household goods, watches or perfumes.Often tagged as the ‘Amazon of the Middle East’, Souq.com raised $75 million from Naspers in March last year, raising the amount raised since it started to $150 million.A PayPal report estimated that the e-commerce market in the Middle East will be worth $15 billion this year, with roughly 10 percent of purchases made on mobile devices.

Gulf eCommerce:  Is this the biggest technology acquisition the Middle East has seen yet?” was the question posed in a tweet posted by Dubai-based entrepreneur Paul Kenny.

The acquisition in question was the $170m deal by German e-commerce group Rocket Internet to acquire Kuwait-based Talabat.com, a food takeaway platform that operates across the GCC.

The deal surpassed the $165m Yahoo! paid in 2009 for Maktoob, and although the valuation would be considerably higher if the first Arabic/English email service provider was sold today, the Talabat deal is yet another endorsement for a sector was said to be worth $95bn in 2013 in the MENA region.

A recent  Frost and Sullivan report entitled ‘New Mega Trends’ estimates that the value of the ‘internet economy’ in the MENA region will double to $200bn by 2020, which is expected to be 5 percent of the region’s GDP (currently 2 percent).  eCommerce in Dubai