Saudi Wealth Fund, Early Alibaba Investor Back Jordanian Startup - Bloomberg
A unit of Saudi Arabia’s $400 billion Public Investment Fund has led a new financing round for OpenSooq.com, a Jordan-based online classifieds business that’s looking to triple its headcount across the Middle East.
The Saudi Jordanian Investment Fund, a $3 billion entity created by the Saudi wealth fund and a group of Jordanian banks, is backing OpenSooq along with existing investors iMENA Group and FJLabs -- founded by Fabrice Grinda, who was an early investor in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
OpenSooq, whose biggest markets are Jordan and Saudi Arabia, said it raised $24 million. The company’s chairman, Khaldoon Tabaza, declined to comment on OpenSooq’s valuation.
Founded in 2008 by Libyan American entrepreneur Salah Al Sharif, OpenSooq is involved in the sale of about $30 billion of goods a year, with an item sold through the company every 13 seconds. After iMENA invested in 2012, the company moved its headquarters to Jordan and began expanding into new countries. It’s now in 19 countries across the Middle East, from the Levant to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
“OpenSooq has touched and improved the lives of more people in its key markets that any other mobile application, bringing real utility to every day needs,” Tabaza said.
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