By Mohamed Alaa El Din
Egyptian search engine Yaoota was able to attract an investment of $2.7m through the Emirati KBBO Fund specialised in investing in start-ups and entrepreneurship, said CEO of Yaoota, Sherif El-Rakabawy.
El-Rakabawy revealed that this investment will be used in widening the base of his customers in the local market, in addition to expanding in the GCC starting next year, especially in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Moreover, efforts will be made in the next period to develop the search engine and increase the number of searches through the engine.
El-Rakabawy explained that Yaoota is satisfied with the received investment, because it is enough to execute the company’s strategy for this period.
On the other hand, El-Rakabawy said that there are many challenges facing the company; perhaps the most prominent is the quality of Internet services in Egypt, especially that the company’s business relies mainly on the Internet. He added that the IT infrastructure sector requires more concentrated investment.
According to El-Rakabawy, Yaoota receives more than 100,000 users monthly, which is five folds more than the number recorded when the site was launched, adding that he seeks to expand, and launch advertising campaigns soon through social networks, in order to attract the largest possible number of users.
Yaoota was established in 2014 and is the first Arab search engine created to facilitate e-commerce. It depends on the concept of search engines, where the user writes the name of the item he/she is looking for. The search engine looks for offers on that item on e-commerce websites, saving time and filtering the results for the user.
