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Egyptian fashion startup, La Reina raises $1 million in a Series A funding round

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La Reina, online fashion rental platform raises $1 million in a Series A funding round

La Reina, Egypt’s first online fashion rental platform, announced $1 million in a Series A funding round led by Egypt’s largest venture capital fund, Algebra Ventures, with participation from the global VC fund, 500 Startups.

Founded in 2016 by Ghada El-Tanawy and Amr Diab, La Reina, Egypt’s largest couture closet, allowing women to rent their evening and bridal gowns to each other. It has been making waves in the local market for two years, with hundreds of new evening dresses and bridal gowns being added to their curated, expanding collection every month.

La Reina co-founders Ghada El-Tanawy and Amr Diab

La Reina co-founders Ghada El-Tanawy and Amr Diab. Photo credit Startup Scene

La Reina caters to women standing on either side of a demand and supply equation – with designer dresses as their meeting point. The company’s database is currently full of millenials who appreciate fashion, and who are economically-savvy. To date, the platform has garnered more than EGP 3.5 million for dress owners.

‘Our number one priority is take our collection from hundreds to thousands. We aim to grow our current closet in order to reach 5000 items by next January,’ says co-founder Ghada El-Tanawy, ‘This would not only mean a revenue worth of EGP 8 million for the dress owners, but also a humble boost for the local economy and a starting point for a transformative business model,’

The company also plans to use the acquired investment to expand its team, ‘We are certainly focusing on the team,’ says Amr Diab, La Reina’s co-founder, ‘At La Reina, we realize that people are the start and end point. We are determined to find the best talent in the local market. Our team has tripled in the past two months, and we’re still looking for more spectacular minds,’

‘Ghada and Amr are two smart, resourceful, and passionate founders with a clear vision of what they want to build,’ says Algebra Ventures’ Managing Partner, Ziad Mokhtar. ’La Reina is taking the first big step in transforming the way Egyptians consume fashion. Startups that go after sizable multi-billion dollar industries, like fashion, attract Algebra’s attention. La Reina is leveraging shifts in consumer behavior driven by technology, and that excites us.’

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In addition to local investors, La Reina has caught the attention of US-based global venture capital fund, 500 Startups. ‘We have been watching the La Reina team since the beginning and were impressed with their innovative approach to solving a huge regional pain point. Not only have we seen similar ideas succeed in the US where the pain point is arguably lower than a place like Egypt (where every week seems to have a formal event with strong social pressures requiring women to dress-to-impress), we were delighted to see how La Reina adapted their strategy and business model around the local nuances and needs on both sides of the marketplace.’ says 500 Startups’ Partner, Sharif El-Badawi. The market has reacted well too. Women who lend their dresses to La Reina earn money in their pockets while those renting get a wide selection for a lot less than.

Algebra Ventures is a $50 million Cairo-based venture capital fund that invests in early-stage technology companies. Its investments include Eventtus, Elmenus, GoodsMart, and Filkhedma.

500 Startups is the most active global early-stage VC fund and startup accelerator focusing on discovering and backing the most talented founders worldwide. Notable portfolio companies include: Twilio (NYSE: TWLO), SendGrid (NASDAQ: SEND), Credit Karma, Canva, Grab, Carousell, Udemy, Intercom, Talkdesk, Makerbot (acquired by SSYS), Wildfire (acquired by GOOG), Viki (acquired by Rakuten), and Kudo (acquired by Grab).

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Putin, Obama war on social media starts with unfriend on Facebook

New stage of the cold war, is it?

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Putin and Obama War on Social Networks!

The Social media war between Putin and Obama started with UnFriend, this is the action taken by Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the Facebook diplomacy with American president Barack Obama.

The unfriending comes after an official White House update about the possibility of a US-Syrian war. President Putin revealed that Obama’s updates about the Congressional debate on a possible war with Syria have annoyed him.

After unfriending, President Putin update status on profile “Something I should have done a long time ago”

Also, He said to Russia’s Pravda News Service “President Assad and I, we are the Facebook friends.  We like the same pages, we share pictures of cute women and all that.  Obama needs to lighten up on there, it’s not for serious stuff,”

President Obama’s latest posts about the possibility of the war in Syria have been reported by someone and he received a warning from Facebook that he will be prevented from posting on his profile for 24 hours.

He has also commented “Really, Putin needs to grow up.  If he didn’t like that [post], he could have just hid it from his news feed instead of creating all this Facebook drama,”

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JOE BIDEN “Vice President of the United States” announced to reports that President Obama has signed into his Twitter account to unfollow Putin.

The turmoil generated between Putin and Obama over their dispute on the Syrian crisis. Expanded to reach the social networks

 Putin and Obama on social Networks

The question now is, are we witnessing a new stage of the cold war between the two countries, will they continue the war online instead of the military tactics and old spy war?

It’s obvious that social media is really changing the game in everything, and now it’s taking over on a very high level.

Keep an eye on Digital Boom and we will keep you posted with more news and updates on the cold war and even more…  

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Amr Diab Gets Hacked on Twitter

Amr Diab’s Facebook page has announced that his twitter account has been hijacked by anonymous and now tweeting political.

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Amr Diab Was Hacked On Twitter!

Update: Amr Diab’s Facebook Page announced that “Amr Diab’s Twitter account has been restored successfully and you can follow Amr’s tweets normally now”

Amr Diab got hacked on Twitter

On Thursday 9th of Jan, Amr Diab’s Facebook page announced that Amr Diab’s Twitter account has been hacked by anonymous and now tweeting politics!

Amr Abdul-Basset Abdul-Azeez Diab  (born 11 October 1961) is an Egyptian singer and composer of pop music. He was awarded the World Music Award for Best Selling Middle East Artist, three times: 1998 for the album “Nour El Ain”, 2002 for the album “Aktrr Wahid Byhbak 2001” and 2007 for the album “El Lillady”. Amr Diab also won The African Music Awards 2009, Big Apple Music Awards; Life Achievements Awards: Best Singer of The Year in 2009, and Best Male Act in African Music Awards 2010.

He is known as the Father of Mediterranean Music He has created his own style which is often termed “Mediterranean Music” or “Mediterranean Sound”, a blend of Western and Egyptian rhythms.

In The Mediterranean in Music, David Cooper and Kevin Dawe referred to his music as “the new breed of Mediterranean music”.According to author Michael Frishkopf, Amr Diab has produced a new concept of Mediterranean music, especially in his international hit, “Nour El Ain”.

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In his analysis of The Very Best of Amr Diab album, Victor W. Valdivia of All music said: “His music melded traditional Arabic sounds and textures with Western rhythms and instruments. The mesh was dubbed Mediterranean music, and The Very Best of Amr Diab displays Diab’s superb skill in creating it.”

In 1997, he won three awards at the Annual Arabic Festival: one for Best Video, for Best Song, and for Best Artist of the Year. Diab received a Triple Platinum Award for the sales of Nour El Ain and a World Music Award in Monaco.

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Review: Sherine Ana Keteer on Social Media

Sherine ‘s new album “Ana Keter” in Social Media

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Review: Sherine Ana Keteer on Social Media

After the success of the previously shared overall analysis of Sherine’s new album “Ana Keter” and her social media presence, we decided to fulfill your requests with more details and additional insights.

The report is from Jan 15 through Jan 31, 2014; however, starting Feb, we noticed that Sherine’s team has enhanced and developed how they engage with fans on Facebook.

Still, there’s more to do; please review the slides below to know what exactly they are missing with recommendations.

Check out the report:

Key take-outs in 15 days after the launch:

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  • Album gained 11 million views in 2 weeks on YouTube
  • YouTube Channel subscribers boosted by 90K subscribers in 15 days out of 127K total subscribers overtime
  • Buzz reached 15K tweets/RTs since the launch on Twitter
  • How do people talk about the album/Sherine on Twitter?
  • People are sharing songs from YouTube & SoundCloud
  • +90% positive sentiment on Twitter
  • Sherine’s Twitter account is excellent at spreading the news about the album’s success.
  • People are tweeting the song’s lyrics.
  • Sarcastic tweets about Sherine & few songs (regular) -  Almost zero negativity about the album
  • Album teasers on Facebook created credibility for Sherine’s page, reflected in the page results after the album’s launch in the next 15 days with 92K Interactions & 312K New Likes.
  • The album received tremendous engagement on the launching date of Jan 15. However, no posts for four days after the launch negatively affected the interactions.

Recommendations:

Sherine Abdel Wahab’s Facebook page would have received double or maybe triple new likes and interactions if the improved posts’ quality; please find below the points taken:

  • Long updates with no extra value-added will lead to losing your fans’ interest
  • The text-only format isn’t preferred, as it is well-known that they generate less reach than other content (Facebook announcement)
  • A call to action is essential to generate leads & increase engagement
  • Each post has to have its visual, audio, or video so you can attract/engage your audiences
  • Understand the situation and act upon it, always be relevant to the time and avoid posting irrelevant content at the wrong time.
  • Revise the tone of voice in future activities.

To recap -  Overall performance is average to good -  Enhance your content formatting -  Improve the tone of voice on all networks -  Be creative to engage your fans better -  Be Consistent -  Start your SoundCloud account.

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