VOICES FROM THE TELECOMS AND IT SECTOR
What is your opinion on the start-up scene in Lebanon?
AIMS is an established company in Lebanon, with 32 years of history and a solid record of accomplishments. Most of our growth has been reached through company-specific strategies. Besides this, we have promoted accelerators in Lebanon, allowing us to accumulate experience and observe developments on both sides. We have noticed a certain ambivalent attitude on the side of the government in its support toward tech companies and digitalization. The government is trying to promote digitalization by supporting newcomers or start-ups, but that risks leaving aside the know-how of established companies. Lebanon's start-up scene has seen many failures because it started with a considerable influx of money that was not accompanied by the necessary expertise. In my opinion, rather than supporting one type of company over another, the best way for the government to promote digitalization is to provide support to the much-needed telecoms infrastructure.
What are your goals moving forward?
Our first goal is to remain a profitable company in a market where international products are trying to penetrate. Our second goal is to ensure the right services for our clients because we not only produce the system, but also implement and support it. Our third goal is to penetrate new markets.
Would you give us an overview of your regional presence and expansion plans?
Mindware is present in more than 30 countries and serves more than 5,000 channel partners across the Middle East and North Africa region. Mindware is part of Midis Group, the biggest ICT technology group in the region, with more than 100 companies between integration and solutions, and more than 5,000 employees across the region. Mindware has been in Lebanon for more than 20 years. Our expansion strategy is three-dimensional. First, we intend to expand into new territories with a better coverage in the Gulf, Levant, and Africa, and perhaps enter Eastern Europe at a later stage. At present, Egypt and Iraq are our primary targets. Second, we will improve our product portfolio and add new solutions. The third dimension will always be about efficient management and being able to secure products through efficient supply chain management.
Would you give us an overview of your services and products?
We have different brands across different countries. We distribute Dell EMC, Microsoft, Juniper, Huawei, Citrix, Veritas, Barracuda, Riverbed, Kodak Alaris, Barco, and Hitachi, for example. In September 2019, we will launch our Mindware marketplace where we will offer all our software and services through the cloud. We offer resellers solution architecture, pre-sales services, proof concepts, professional services, training, enablement, logistics, and the right facilities.
What is Speed's vision?
Speed's goal is to increase the quality of start-ups for future investments and provide them with support and access to capital at an early stage. Selected start-ups get USD30,000 in funding, an intensive three-month mentorship-driven program, and a shared space in our offices. Along with our 150-plus local and international mentors, we count on global partnerships with Techstars and LebNet. We are part of the Global Accelerator Network (GAN), which provides perks such as online subscriptions, technology usage, and a network of more than 110 accelerators around the world. We are perhaps the best offering in the region, as we ask for 5% equity only in exchange. Our biggest focus is the team, its expertise, how coachable they are, how well they know each other, and how well they work together. Then, we look at the market and finally the idea of the start-up. We interview approximately 30% of all start-up applicants, and half of those make it to the second round. Then, approximately half of those make it to Speed. In five cycles of acceleration, we have graduated 34 start-ups. Of these, eight have raised funding of USD2.6 million. We are a great attraction for deep-tech and advanced technologies in computers, machine learning, and AI.
What is the vision behind Endeavor and how does the model work?
Endeavor was set up 21 years ago in the US to provide support to entrepreneurs in emerging Latin American economies, where there was an influx of funding and investors but little expertise on how to use the money. Endeavor is present in 34 countries across the world, including a few hubs in the US. While it started in emerging countries with flourishing entrepreneurial growth, it evolved into a model applicable in all underserved countries in terms of support for entrepreneurs. We support scale-ups, i.e. high-growth SMEs with more than USD1 million in revenues and a competitive advantage that can help them scale with a potential of growing 10 times. According to a recent study developed by Strategy and Endeavor on scaling up MENA SMEs, a successful MENA scale-up can generate up to 3.4 times more revenue and eight times more employment than a traditional SME. In Lebanon, we would like to select four to five companies a year, but it really depends on quality. If selected, the scale-ups receive access to our network in 34 countries and more than 5,000 high-profile mentors. We have programs with Harvard, Stanford, and consulting firms like Strategy&, Bain, KPMG, and EY, for example, that give pro bono projects to the selected companies.
What have been the main accomplishments for the company?
This is Lebanon's first international accelerator. We help innovative Lebanese companies grow and access global markets through our London hub. With the support of the World Bank and DFID, we recently started covering Jordan. In 1Q2019, we helped Jordan's top-15 tech start-ups to start expanding to UK/EU markets through fundraising and business development support. To date, we have accelerated 91 tech start-ups from various verticals. Our start-ups raised more than USD60 million from venture capitalists, corporate venture capitalists, and angel investors around the world with a cumulative valuation of USD200 million. In Lebanon, we created 2,000 direct and indirect jobs. This volume was made possible by our London hub which enabled us to place the fastest growing start-ups in the right technology clusters of the UK, connecting them to globally proven mentors and venture partners. What we do does not only benefit start-ups. We offer our service both as an accelerator and an early stage investment manager to academia, industry, and governments. We can help traditional sectors and enterprises use technology and innovation to grow their business. Our turn-key solutions and modules help companies to innovate internally, partner with existing start-ups, manage their own spin-offs, and explore suitable co-investment, licensing, or franchising deals with international peers.
VOICES FROM THE TELECOMS AND IT SECTOR
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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