Oasis500 Secures Regional Investment of USD 1 Million

Oasis500, the MENA region’s premier early stage and seed investment company, announced that it has secured a USD 1 million investment from TIMAR Ventures, a Turkey-based early-to-expansion stage venture capital fund, during a press conference held on Sunday, 18th September, 2011. The press conference was attended by Dr. Paul Doany, Chairman of TIMAR Ventures and former CEO of Oger Telecom, Mrs. Mehtap Mae Ozkan Founding Partner and Managing Director of TIMAR Ventures and Founder of Golden Horn Ventures, the first institutional venture capital fund in Turkey, alongside Oasis500 management and board and prominent local media representatives.

This investment is targeted at the first funding round of Oasis500 Ventures 1, the investment arm of Oasis500, and will be invested directly into startup companies, either during the initial USD $15,000 funding stage or beyond. TIMAR’s investment will be used to strategically fund fast-growth and investment-ready early stage ICT, digital media and mobile companies in the MENA region. These companies will be selected by Oasis500 for their innovative technologies and business models after having undergone the extremely competitive BootCamp selection process.

“We are pleased with the active involvement of some of the most dynamic early stage investors in Turkey represented by TIMAR Ventures”, commented Dr. Usama Fayyad, Executive Chairman of Oasis500, and former Executive VP and Chief Data Officer of Yahoo! Inc.

“I look forward to working closely with Mae. Ozkan and Paul Doany as active advisors, investors and mentors in Oasis500”. Dr. Fayyad added: “This investment will be targeted into companies surviving our tough BootCamp training program which includes intensive business training and is designed to prepare entrepreneurs to manage fast growth technology companies in the MENA Region”.

In turn, Dr. Doany stated, “I am very proud to be participating in Oasis500, and to be investing in Jordan and the young promising talents we see emerging in Jordan.” Mehtap Ozkan added, “We see a joint future between Turkish and Arab companies, for regional businesses, and even for global ones, and we are here because Jordan has taken great steps to support its home grown talents, as we have done in Turkey”.

Mr. Tarik Awad, CEO of King Abdullah II Fund for Development (KAFD) and Vice Chairman of Oasis 500 stated: “We welcome Timar Ventures alongside KAFD as Anchor Investors in the first Oasis500 fund and we are proud to have attracted them to Jordan as a place to invest in fast-growth technology startups.”

TIMAR Ventures is a USD $150 million early-to-expansion-stage venture capital fund that invests globally in companies that apply disruptive innovation in technology and business models to create category dominant players. It also invests in the “replicate-and-innovate” model which aims to replicate successful business innovation models within Turkey, the Arab region, the Central Asian Republics and Central Eastern Europe.

Oasis500 is the first development and investment company of its kind in the MENA region. It aims to support entrepreneurs by providing them with funding and training in an effort to accelerate the transformation of business ideas into start-up companies in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), mobile and digital media. Oasis500 aims at accelerating the launch of 500 start-up companies within the next five years, which will create an incentive for aspiring entrepreneurs and creates job opportunities within the fastest growing sectors in the world.

The King Abdullah II Fund for Development (KAFD) was created in 2001 to encourage innovation and growth in Jordan’s public and private sectors with the overall aim of generating creative approaches to the challenges posed by rapid development and to help achieve a fair distribution of its benefits among the various governorates of the Kingdom.

KAFD operates as a nongovernmental organization, based on the conviction that for development to be successful it must engage people and institutions at the grass-roots level. KAFD’s main objectives are to:

  •  Encourage citizens to establish business enterprises through individual assistance;
  •  Create governorate-level programmes that enhance productivity and contribute to improving the quality of life of residents.
  •  Encourage scientific, cultural, sports, educational and social activities, to help nurture innovators, freethinkers and well-rounded citizens.

Source: Ammon /PDF

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