- The 100 startups, selected from almost 400 applicants from 16 countries, come a variety of sectors
- The selected 100 Arab startups will have a chance to discuss and promote their businesses in Jordan on April 6 to 7
DUBAI: An online platform that offers quality home-cooked meals, a home maintenance website that links owners and service providers and a social learning platform are just among the ten Saudi companies that made it to the World Economic Forum’s 100 most promising startups for 2019.
The startups, selected from almost 400 applicants from 16 countries, come a variety of sectors including education, energy, environment, finance, health and the media. The WEF and the Bahrain Economic Development Board launched the initiative in 2017 to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in Middle East and North African region.
The Saudi entrepreneurs named as shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution in 2019 are:
- Ajeer, an on-demand platform that connects homeowners and maintenance service providers at competitive prices and high quality;
- DokkanAfkar.com, an e-commerce player focused on homegrown products and local entrepreneurs;
- FalconViz, which is focused on 3D surveying and mapping through unmanned aerial systems;
- Foodics, a cloud-based retail and restaurant management system for transactions, inventory, employee, scheduling, logistics, delivery, loyalty programs and e-commerce;
- HalalaH, a digital wallet that enables businesses to accept payments via a simple QR code-scanning methodology;
- Lucidya, an Arabic-focused social media listening tool powered by artificial intelligence;
- Mathaqi, an online platform where consumers could purchase quality, curated meals directly from home chefs;
- Mrsool, an on-demand service where users can request a courier to purchase (in cash) and deliver items for them from any store in the city;
- Noon Academy, one of the fastest growing on-demand ed-tech start-ups in the Middle East, with over 1.5 million registered students; and
- Unifonic, a cloud communications platform as a service.
The selected 100 Arab startups will have a chance to discuss and promote their businesses with government and business leaders at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa at the Dead Sea, Jordan on April 6 to 7.