Oasis500

Oasis500 is the leading seed investment company and business accelerator in the Tech and Creative Industry spaces based in Amman, Jordan. We enable great entrepreneurs to transform their viable ideas or creative talents into scalable businesses. That includes finding those entrepreneurs, investing in their startups, bridging their know-how gap, and eventually helping them get follow-on funding. In the process, we have become one of the most influential players in advancing the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem in Jordan and the MENA region in general. It all starts with reaching out to those people with the entrepreneurial drive, compelling them to embrace it and submit their startup ideas to Oasis500. Successful applicants are invited to attend our intensive Business and Entrepreneurship workshop aimed at building their entrepreneurial capacity and maximizing their potential of securing funding. Those with more mature pitches may go to the investment stage directly and skip the workshop. Startups that are successful at securing funding from Oasis500 will be accelerated at our facilities for 180 days where the focus will be on driving growth. Startups will have access to the tremendous cumulative know-how of Oasis500 staff, and our wonderful network of mentors. Not to mention the vibrant community that will help them come to terms with their maturing entrepreneurial identity. They will also be introduced to our investors network at a later stage as part of our focused efforts to help them get follow-on funding when needed.

Luma Fawaz

CEO

Walid Tahabsem

Co-Founder and Board Member

Past deals in North Africa

Little Thinking Minds

Seed Round in 2017
Little Thinking Minds Company, LLC. produces educational Arabic content for children. It offers its educational content on various platforms, such as DVDs, CDs, activity books, flash cards, video and audio downloads, apps, and online games. The company sells its products through retail outlets, bookshops, play areas, and mega stores, as well as online in the United States, the United Kingdom, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Singapore, and Australia. Little Thinking Minds Company, LLC. was founded in 2004 and is based in Amman, Jordan with additional locations in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Sheaply

Seed Round in 2015
Sheaply is a shipping company that specializes in crowd-shipping services. The company offers a web platform that connects travelers and shippers. Its platform enables shippers to find a trusted traveler to ship their packages or order their abroad purchases. Sheaply was founded by Hicham Zarrouky and Yassine Zyad in 2014.

Play 3arabi

Seed Round in 2015
Play 3arabi Inc publishes social media mobile games focusing on the Middle East and North Africa region. Its games include Heidi: Alpine Adventure, a mini-games series to teach children more about life in the mountains; Kingdoms Online, a military strategy game; Stars of Knowledge, a multi-player trivia game played on Facebook; Arab Racing, a car racing multi-player game. The company develops games for iOS and Android. Play 3arabi Inc was founded in 2014 and is based in New Castle, Delaware.

PieRide

Seed Round in 2014
PieRide Inc. is a technology platform based in Cairo, Egypt, that provides car transportation services for daily commuters. Launched in 2013 by Karim Mansi, the company offers a monthly subscription service that sends trained drivers to pick up clients each morning and return them home after work or university. By leveraging a shared consumption model, PieRide matches individuals within the same community, allowing them to share rides and reduce commuting costs. This innovative approach addresses the commuting challenges faced by residents in Cairo, providing a convenient and cost-effective solution for everyday transportation needs.

MadfooatCom

Pre Seed Round in 2012
MadfooatCom is the first e-payments company in Jordan, established in 2011 with an investment by Oasis500, aiming to disrupt the cash payments in the emerging markets. In 2014, MadfooatCom won the bid for the Central Bank of Jordan’s project to build and operate eFAWATEERcom; the national electronic bill presentment and payment service in Jordan. Today, it is connected to 100% of the banks and more than 300 billers including all telecom, utilities, private and government sector billers (Customs dept., e-Gov, ministry of Finance, social security, traffic tickets, etc...), and has processed till date, more than 48 million bills paid worth of more than 32 billion USD. The government of Jordan decided to use eFAWATEERcom for all its payments. By the end of 2017, more than 10 government services stopped using cash and transfer to ePayments using eFAWATEERcom in a government plan to digitize all government services and payments by 2020. MadfooatCom expanded to Oman and Palestine with more MENA countries in the pipeline (Algeria, Kenya, …), and is an active member of Endeavor Entrepreneurs’ global network and EO network. MadfooatCom was recently licensed by the Central Bank of Jordan as an e-wallet operator, to build and operate an electronic wallet in Jordan to help the unbanked people with managing their financials online. MadfooatCom’s CEO and Founder (Nasser Saleh) received the award of excellence from his majesty King Abdullah II for the company service: eFAWATEERcom which made the people life easier by introducing ePayments for most of their payments. In January 2018, Mr. Nasser also received the Mohammad bin Rashid Award at Dubai for the best Service Company in the Arab World. In 2019 MadfooatCom was selected as one of the top 100 startups that are shaping the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" in the MENA region and in 2020 was ranked by Forbes magazine in the top 10 Best regional technology companies in the Middle East Customers are wasting a lot of time and effort in paying their bills forcing them to stand in long queues for extended periods of time s they can pay their bills online, anywhere and anytime. Our platform, eFAWATEERcom, streamlines the billing and collection process for businesses and consumers alike. It runs on a scalable, microservices-based architecture that accommodates billers, banks and payment service providers. The system uses RTGS (Real Time Gross and Settlement System) to enable real time settlements that can be configured to handle multiple sessions.

Little Thinking Minds

Pre Seed Round in 2011
Little Thinking Minds Company, LLC. produces educational Arabic content for children. It offers its educational content on various platforms, such as DVDs, CDs, activity books, flash cards, video and audio downloads, apps, and online games. The company sells its products through retail outlets, bookshops, play areas, and mega stores, as well as online in the United States, the United Kingdom, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Singapore, and Australia. Little Thinking Minds Company, LLC. was founded in 2004 and is based in Amman, Jordan with additional locations in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Little Thinking Minds

Pre Seed Round in 2011
Little Thinking Minds Company, LLC. produces educational Arabic content for children. It offers its educational content on various platforms, such as DVDs, CDs, activity books, flash cards, video and audio downloads, apps, and online games. The company sells its products through retail outlets, bookshops, play areas, and mega stores, as well as online in the United States, the United Kingdom, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Singapore, and Australia. Little Thinking Minds Company, LLC. was founded in 2004 and is based in Amman, Jordan with additional locations in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.