Jordan’s Mawdoo3 gets $1.5M in series A funding

Mawdoo3, the Jordanian startup modelling itself on Wikipedia for Arabic content, has just closed a Series A funding round of $1.5 million.

Closed last week, the round is completely funded by new Dubai-based investors EquiTrust. Said to be part of a much larger regional company, the investors are at this time declining to disclose where they are coming from.

Bootstrapped with personal money and that of family and friends, the startup was also the recipient of a first prize for the Queen Rania Business Plan Competition Award in 2011, when they were still students.

Cofounder Mohammad Jaber told Wamda that they were planning on using the round for expansion of their product development, marketing and content.

“The fund will allow us to pursue higher project growth at an accelerated rate from now on,” he said.

Servicing a need

Considering the number of Arabic readers online, the quantity of available content bears no resemblance. According to the UN, the more than 370 million Arabic speakers worldwide are being met with less than one percent Arabic content.

Wamda’s own research with Google showed that 60 percent of Arabs would prefer Arabic content.

Inspired by models like Wikipedia, and not too dissimilar to the blog section of the Huffington Post, Mawdoo3 (which is Arabic for ‘subject’) employs freelance writers, who write on topics from the arts, to health, to religion. The articles are then submitted and then vetted and edited by one of either the 20 full time employees, or outside specialists in any given field.

Original article by Lucy Knight

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Jordan’s Mawdoo3 gets $1.5M in series A funding

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