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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS – Oasis500, the MENA region’s premier early stage and seed investment company, announced securing two investment deals for its Angel Network event’s start-ups, Zaytouneh and Jamalon.

The announcement was made during a press conference held on 30th November, 2011, attended by Dr. Usama Fayyad, Chairman of Oasis500 and former Executive VP and Chief Data Officer of Yahoo! Inc., and representatives from both companies as well as their investors.

Announced investors include several Jordanian Angel investors as well as Oasis500’s investment arm, Oasis500 Ventures 1 (OV1). Zaytouneh, a digital library of high quality short cooking videos, attracted private investments from Maktoob and Jabbar co-founders Samih Toukan & Husam Khoury and regional angel investment fund MENA Venture Investments. In turn, Jamalon, an online bookstore for Arabic & English books, secured a total investment of USD 400,000 from private investors Hana Habayeb, Ranwa Halasa, Suleiman Al-Assaf, Tariq Hammouri, OV1 and regional angel investment fund MENA Venture Investments.

The secured investments will help fund the two start-ups’ expansion and infrastructure enhancement plans, thus enabling them to broaden their market reach and expand on a regional level. Zaytouneh Founder and CEO Fida Taher and Jamalon Founder and CEO Ala' Al Sallal expressed excitement at this development and thanked Oasis500 for its role in helping them acquire the necessary funding to take their business operations to the next level.

“We are very pleased that yet another two of our Angel Network event’s companies have successfully closed investment deals in such a short period of time. The fact that seasoned investors are willing to commit to Oasis500 start-ups testifies to the level of confidence they have in Jordan’s economy and the exceptional potential they see in our entrepreneurs. We are proud of Zaytouneh and Jamalon, and we foresee a bright future ahead of them,” said Dr. Fayyad.

“Jamalon’s founder is a very promising and creative young entrepreneur; his determination and drive are very inspiring. He should be a role model for the future of our youth when entrepreneurship and job creation are at the heart of Jordan and Arab narratives,” said Fadi Ghandour director at MENA Venture Investments. In turn, Toukan stated, "We are very excited to invest in Zaytouneh. We believe it is a unique and innovative idea that will grow to become a strong company. People today are using video on the Internet to get information more than any other source and Zaytouneh is specialized in delivering quality instructional videos to its customers. It is an effective targeted marketing solution to advertisers."

The Oasis500 Angel Network event is the first of its kind in the Middle East and aims to highlight the most exciting fast-growth and investment-ready entrepreneurial projects within the Information and Communications Technology (ICT), mobile and digital media sectors across the MENA region. Oasis500’s 2nd Angel Network event took place in September 2011, and showcased the ideas of six new and promising start-ups, five of which were incubated by Oasis500. The event gives new startups the opportunity to pitch to and network with attending international and local investors.