Mobily Ventures, a new venture capital unit of Etihad Etisalat launched late August recently invested into “Easy Taxi”, a taxi hailing application for smart phones, which users can book a taxi to come to their location available on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows iPhone and Anghami, a mobile application that provides millions of Arabic and Western songs to listen to and download for free.Apart from Easy Taxi Saudi Arabia, and Anghami, Mobily Ventures will focus on Early-Stage and Growth-Stage startups in e-commerce & retail innovation, mobile financial services & payment, digital advertising, digital content & entertainment as well as IT & cloud services and will zero down on the MENA region..
According to Engineer Khalid Bin Omar Al Kaf, CEO of Mobily, “Mobily Ventures will further strengthen our company’s position in the ICT sector through the adoption of innovative products and services from the startups and at the same time foster entrepreneurship in the Kingdom and the wider Arab world”. Dr. Karl-Michael Henneking, Chief Corporate Strategy and M&A Officer of Mobily adds to this, “We not only gain valuable insight and understanding of market trends through equity investments in young high-tech companies, but also can build technological and economical synergies with the business units of Mobily”.
Though it’s invested in Rocket Internet’s Easy Taxi, Mobily has no relationship with the internet builder and is part of Etisalat Group, the largest operator group in the Middle East and Africa, operating in 18 countries across the region, with a coverage area that reaches more than two billion people. With operations in the United Arab Emirates and Mobily in Saudi Arabia, Etisalat Group is covering the most attractive markets in GCC in terms of mobile & internet usage. With Egypt and Morocco, Etisalat is present in two further attractive MENA countries.