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Ammon News - The Innovative Startups and SMEs Fund (ISSF) on Monday announced that it had made a direct investment of $200,000 in Abjjad, an e-book platform and Arabic network for readers, authors, and bloggers in the Middle East.

The investment is part of the fund’s strategy of supporting 150-200 local innovative companies through direct and indirect investment, training and upgrading the competencies of 600 entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises to qualify them for more advanced investment stages.

Abjjad has met all of the fund's direct investment criteria, namely being an innovative digital firm with ambitious vision and high growth potential.

As a vast network of readers, writers and publishing houses alike, Abjjad, through its huge electronic library, contributes to opening a new market for the Arab publishing industry by converting titles into digital books, easily accessible by 168 million Arab readers.

To date, Abjjad includes 50 Arab publishers, officially contracting with the platform, and more than 250,000 users.

The ISSF is a private sector-managed fund making investments in innovative startups and early stage SMEs. It seeks to promote entrepreneurship and contribute to job creation in Jordan by increasing private, early stage equity finance for innovative small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

In addition to early stage financing, the ISSF encourages entrepreneurship across Jordan with outreach programs to entrepreneurs from lagging regions, underserved sectors and underserved groups such as youth and women entrepreneurs.