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SUNDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2014 • [email protected] • www.thepeninsulaqatar.com • 4455 7741 inside Beyond the Lights: CAMPUS A star turn for • Indian schools in Qatar celebrate Gugu Mbatha-Raw Children’s Day P | 4 P | 8-9 HOSPITALITY • Mercure Hotel to host Moroccan food festival Shades of Silicon Valley are bubbling P | 6 up in Tehran, which is home to a growing tech ecosystem with start-ups, TRAVEL accelerators and a venture capital firm, despite the significant challenges of • Tea, trains and tales launching a tech company in Iran. from Darjeeling P | 7 HEALTH • Parental attitudes may contribute to kids’ chronic constipation P | 11 TECHNOLOGY • Samsung chases curved smartphone wave to beat flat-screen crowd TECH BOOM P | 12 LEARN ARABIC • Learn commonly used Arabic words IN TEHRAN and their meanings P | 13 2 PLUS | SUNDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2014 COVER STORY A taste of Silicon Valley in Iran Mohammad Sadjad Fallah, left, and By Matt McFarland Mohammad Tootia work for the start-up Lendthem, a peer-lending platform in Tehran. bout 15 years ago, he was the first kidd in his Tehran high school to get the capital firm, despite the significant challenges of for the United States. He worked for IBM and Internet. “Don’t try to tell anybody launching a tech company in Iran. launched a start-up in Upstate New York. Later else about it,” he recalls his principal “It’s definitely more difficult than any other as an employee of Internet company Naspers, he warning. “It might affect their cul- country,” said Eyad Alkassar, who manages the was asked to evaluate the possibility of investing Ature, their beliefs.” Middle East investments for Rocket Internet, a in Iran start-ups. Ultimately, Naspers decided not She was an early Internet user, too, and obsessed German company that replicates successful busi- to invest, but Rahmani was convinced of the coun- with Yahoo messenger. She’d message strangers in nesses in the developing world. try’s potential and returned to where he was born. chat rooms while assuring her concerned parents Insiders say there has been a turning point in He and others point to the combination of a that she wasn’t revealing too much. the past two years. young, educated population, the proliferation of Fast forward to today and the duo is at the “When I came to Iran, no one even knew the smartphones and increasing Internet speeds as helm of some of Tehran’s thriving start-ups. Both word start-up,” said Daneshvar, who returned to fertile landscape for start-ups. The country’s lead- left Europe for careers in Iran. Cafe Bazaar co- her native country three years ago after working ing start-up — Digikala — is similar to Amazon. founder Hessam Armandehi, 28, and Takhfifan in Germany. com. The World Start-Up Fund says that it is founder Nazanin Daneshvar, 30, have turned prof- “If you look at the use of the words like entrepre- worth $150m. its, had to move to larger offices and gained thou- neurship, start-ups and venture capital, I think you There are other signs, too. Iran Web Festival, sands of customers. His high school now has WiFi. will see a trend that there was absolutely a mini- launched in 2008 to recognise the country’s best And she’s too busy for chat rooms, but has come mum, nothing mentioned in Iran for two years,” websites, started with just 100 applicants. This to idolize Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer. said Said Rahmani, who founded Tehran’s first year, 8,000 websites entered, and 450 people Shades of Silicon Valley are bubbling up in venture capital firm, Sarava. “Now you can talk attended a related conference. Start-Up Grind Tehran, which is home to a growing tech ecosys- about venture capital, VCs, its become a fashion.” has opened a chapter in Tehran to connect and tem with start-ups, accelerators and a venture Rahmani was born in Iran but left as a teenager mentor entrepreneurs. PLUS | SUNDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2014 3 One of them was Sina Zand Karimi, who builds apps for Cafe Bazaar. The 20-year-old has made $20,000 since launching a popular car racing app two months ago. He’d like to launch a game studio in Iran, but his parents want him to com- plete his degree at Sharif University of Technology first. The school pro- duces a lot of tech talent, including the founders of the dating service Zoosk. Although many top students — such as the Zoosk co-founders — leave Iran to pursue more degrees or launch careers, there are reasons to believe they can be successful at home. Digikala's fullfillment Twin brothers Hamid and Saeed center in Tehran. Mohammadi, 35, founded the now- vaunted Digikala after a frustrat- ing attempt to buy a digital SLR Iran now has three accelerators, Armandehi has tangled with his Zendesk cut him off. All the e-mail camera. They spent more than two including Avatech, which accepted own issues, and became frustrated threads and support tickets for cus- months researching a camera as its first class in October. They offer with how Silicon Valley companies tomers were lost. He asked Zendesk they struggled to find review web- mentors such as Reza Hashemi, 38, have handled Iranian sanctions. for a chance to back up the files. He sites in Farsai. When they finally who started the popular Persian Blog After college, Armandehi attended never heard back. settled on a Nikon D70, there were in 2001 as the Iranian equivalent a graduate programme in Sweden, So Cafe Bazaar resorted to using no e-commerce companies operat- of Blogger. At that time, Hashemi but chose to return home. gmail to respond to customers. He ing in Iran. So they bought a camera wasn’t able to raise money for his “If I came back to Iran, I would missed Zendesk’s ability to track the from a brick-and-mortar retailer in site as he encountered investors who lose everything that I could do out- performance of his customer service Tehran. But their photos turned out were unfamiliar with the Internet. side Iran — reservation via Airbnb, team, and couldn’t find alternative blurry. When they asked a friend in On the front lines of Iran’s growth working on Android Market. I was software until this fall. photography for advice, he pointed are Armandehi and Daneshvar, who losing everything and still I was not “If you’re looking for a technology, out that the camera’s lense had been know well the challenges, advan- that unhappy with it. I felt that we if you’re looking for a device, if you swapped out for a worse model. tages and frustrations of launching can create everything inside Iran want to buy a server, if you really “The seller cheated us,” Hamid an Internet company in Iran, where ourselves,” Armandehi said. need investment from other coun- Mohammadi recalled. sanctions are both a gift and a curse. Because Google’s app store for tries, yes in these parts sanctions are So the brothers used $20,000 in Daneshvar’s profitable business — Android wasn’t initially available in very bad,” said Shayan Shalileh, who savings to start their business. They Takhfifan — is essentially a Groupon Iran, it opened a door in 2010 for started Iran Web Festival. borrowed office space from their clone. Her site has more than 1 mil- Armandehi to co-found Cafe Bazaar, Armandehi previously had an brother, who didn’t charge them rent lion email subscribers and offers 25 which is essentially an Android app account on Google’s Android Market, for their first year. deals per day. One especially suc- store for Iranians. It had 100,000 where he launched a Persian calen- Today Digikala receives 3,000 cessful deal sold 20,000 tickets to a users within three months, and dar app. The account was later sus- orders a day. Mohammadi thinks movie. She also launched a website now has 10,000 local apps available pended by Google (but because of an the $150m valuation for his com- that resembles Yelp, and has 20,000 from more than 2,000 developers. apparent bug in the system he still pany should be even higher as he user-written reviews. According to World Startup Report, receives monthly emails alerting him expects $100m to $150m in revenue Although international sanctions it’s worth $20m. that “you’ll need to take action to this year. Digikala has 450 employ- on Iran are imposed to hinder the To manage the growth, in March receive your payment this month”). ees, and expects to have 700 in five economy, they’re somewhat of a ben- 2012 Armandehi partnered with At a 2012 conference in Barcelona, months. It will have distribution efit to entrepreneurs who don’t have Zendesk, a Danish start-up, to pro- Armandehi asked then-Google chief centres in 16 cities in two months, to compete with international com- vide a helpdesk for Cafe Bazaar. He executive Eric Schmidt if he would and will offer next-day delivery in panies that are barred from operat- figured he’d be safe from sanctions, do anything to loosen the restric- those cities. All deliveries are made ing in the country. But the road to given Zendesk’s European roots. But tions on Iranians. Schmidt offered by Digikala employees. a successful start-up is bumpy, and suddenly in November of that year condolences and cited the role of The company was profitable from entrepreneurs can’t dream of scal- sanctions, but also the start, by necessity, but this ing their business globally.

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