News
Saudi Startup Lendo Secures $7.2 Million in Series A
Riyadh-based fintech firm Lendo has successfully secured $7.2 million in a Series A funding round, as announced today. The round, conducted exclusively in equity, was led by Saudi’s Derayah Ventures and saw participation from Seedra Ventures, Shorooq Partners, 500 Startups, and Impact46.
Established in 2019 by Osama AlRaee and Mohammad Jawabri, Lendo specializes in providing immediate invoice financing solutions to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through its Shariah-compliant lending marketplace. This offering assists SMEs in addressing their immediate cash flow needs. Invoice financing is a widely used short-term borrowing tool for businesses across various global markets, enabling them to leverage their accounts receivables to secure loans from financial institutions. However, such financing options are scarce in the Middle East region.
Lendo facilitates loans ranging from SAR 100,000 (approximately $27,000) to SAR 3 million ($800,000) by connecting SMEs with investors via its crowdlending platform, also known as peer-to-peer lending. To qualify for financing through Lendo, SMEs must possess a valid Saudi business license (commercial registration), have been in operation for at least one year, and generate an annual turnover of at least SAR 2 million ($530,000).
Upon receiving all necessary details and documentation, Lendo takes up to three days to review an applicant’s profile. If approved, businesses can apply for financing of up to 80 percent of the invoice value issued to their customers. These opportunities are then presented on Lendo’s platform for collective funding by investors. Lendo claims that, on average, opportunities on its platform are funded in approximately half an hour.
Investments on the platform start from SAR 1,000 (approximately $270) and are open to any Saudi citizen or resident over the age of 18 with a valid ID and bank account. Expected annual profits range from 9 to 24 percent, depending on the SME’s risk profile. Each opportunity listed on Lendo receives a risk rating based on factors including credit history, financial standing, owners’ personal credit history and experience, and the strength of the invoice.
The startup generates revenue by charging SMEs a management fee and receiving a 20 percent share of the profits earned by investors.
Although Lendo was launched just last year, it claims to have financed over 100 invoices totaling more than SAR 60 million for SMEs and has provided investors with profits exceeding SAR 3 million. According to Osama AlRaee, the co-founder and CEO of Lendo, the platform currently boasts a default rate of zero.
AlRaee expressed his pride in the backing of prominent investors with extensive experience in the rapidly growing MENA entrepreneurial ecosystem, emphasizing their trust in Lendo’s business model and its potential to achieve both short-term and long-term goals.
Lendo’s expansion plans include serving Jeddah and the Eastern Region in Saudi Arabia before extending its services to other parts of the region. The company also intends to introduce new products aimed at assisting SMEs in securing working capital. In addition to Lendo, the Saudi SME lending landscape features competitors such as Raqamyah (which raised $2.3 million just last month with participation from Impact46, a firm that also invested in Lendo’s funding round), Forus, and Dubai-based Beehive. Lendo is among the lending startups included in the Saudi Central Bank’s regulatory sandbox.
Faris Alrashed from Derayah Ventures commended Lendo’s remarkable performance, particularly during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. He emphasized the importance of Lendo’s offering in the industry and its timely response to the growing demand for financing solutions in the dynamic SME lending sector.
Shane Shin, Founding Partner of Shorooq Partners, expressed excitement about joining Lendo’s journey as a new investor and their commitment to helping Lendo become the dominant regional player within Saudi Arabia.
News
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.
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”.
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.
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:
- 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.
News
Putin, Obama war on social media starts with unfriend on Facebook
New stage of the cold war, is it?
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,”
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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