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Mobily's new fund to invest in emerging Internet and IT startups [Arab News (Saudi Arabia)](Arab News (Saudi Arabia) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) • Khalid Al-Kaf RIYADH: ARAB NEWS Mobily continues to foster its position of innovation and market leadership by the launch of Mobily Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Mobily. Mobily Ventures invests in high-tech startup companies in the telecommunication, IT, media and entertainment industries. The focus will be on early stage and growth stage startups in areas, including e-commerce and retail innovation, mobile financial services and payment, digital advertising, digital content and entertainment as well as IT and cloud services. As a strategic investor, the goal of Mobily Ventures is to build technological and economical synergies between the startup and Mobily. Mobily Ventures will enable startups to leverage Mobily assets to accelerate their growth. Khalid Al-Kaf, CEO of Mobily, said: "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." Karl-Michael Henneking, chief corporate strategy and M&A officer of Mobily, stated: "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." The first two investments announced by Mobily Ventures are: Easy Taxi, a company that provides an application for smartphones, which enables users to book a taxi to come to their location. The Easy Taxi application is available on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows iPhone and can be downloaded from the websitehttp://www.easytaxi.com/sa-ar/. The second investment is Anghami, a mobile application that provides millions of Arabic and Western songs to listen to and download for free. Anghami allows users to discover new music based on their taste, along with the ability to share one's favorite songs with friends. Anghami is available to download through the website: https://www.anghami.com/ar/. (c) 2014 Arab News All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |