{"id":28228,"date":"2015-06-24T05:33:23","date_gmt":"2015-06-24T03:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/?p=28228"},"modified":"2015-06-25T17:12:23","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T15:12:23","slug":"28228","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/28228\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiger Funds Amazon of Dubai"},"content":{"rendered":"
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US-based Tiger Global Management has reportedly boosted its investment in Dubai-based online retailer Souq.com during a fundraising round.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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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.<\/p>\n

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

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Souq.com, which was established in 2005, is the Middle East\u2019s 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 \u2018Amazon of the Middle East\u2019, 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.<\/p>\n

Gulf eCommerce:\u00a0 Is this the biggest technology acquisition the Middle East has seen yet?\u201d was the question posed in a tweet posted by Dubai-based entrepreneur Paul Kenny.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

A recent\u00a0 Frost and Sullivan report entitled \u2018New Mega Trends\u2019 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\u2019s GDP (currently 2 percent).\u00a0 eCommerce in Dubai<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US-based Tiger Global Management has reportedly boosted its investment in Dubai-based online retailer Souq.com during a fundraising round. Souq.com raised $150 million and may seek more funding as part of plans to raise $300 million, citing two people with knowledge … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t