Five One Labs Launches Program to Supercharge Growth of Later-Stage Startups in Iraq
Entrepreneurship in the Middle East is booming. According to Magnitt, 2020 saw a record rise in investments into high-growth startups - over $1 billion over the course of the year. 2021 has been equally exciting: Tamara, a 9-month old Saudi buy-now-pay-later startup just received an unbelievable $110 million Series A investment just last week. In Iraq however, obstacles to growth have made it much harder for great startups to attract investment, scale, and succeed on a local and regional level.
To help impressive growth-stage startups overcome these obstacles and reach their potential, Five One Labs expanded its offerings for later-stage startups this week by launching an exciting new initiative called Five One Labs’ “Acceleration Services.” Acceleration Services will provide later-stage startups in Iraq with practical consulting and support services to supercharge their growth and professionalize their operations.
Many startups have the grit to succeed, but need additional support to grow and expand. Basil Al Tirkawi, founder of Kurd Sale, mentions, “I started Kurd Sale in 2013 with very personal contributions and basic resources. Now, after 7 years, we need that big leap to start a new phase in our startup to expand across Iraq and the region as well...I applied to Acceleration Services to gain more skills from experts, expand our network, and accelerate our growth.”
Acceleration Services aims to make growth attainable through highly targeted, professional consulting and services in areas like marketing and sales, team building and growth, financial management, and investment readiness. Unlike other accelerators currently operating in the country, the Acceleration Services are offered in local languages of Arabic and Kurdish. Over the span of four months, the Five One Labs team and specialized business consultants and international experts will provide startups with six hours of advanced workshops each month, a closed-door talk with an expert or CEO in the field, 4 hours of targeted one-on-one consulting from partner agencies, and additional legal, technological, and business consulting where needed.
“This program provides a higher dose of motivation to continue with the hard work on my startup. Also, it will enable me to meet new creative people and enrich my network, which is crucial for the success of my startup. Moreover, I need more guidance to improve the marketing and team building tactics in my startup”
This program was generously funded by USAID, in partnership with Chemonics, and is free of charge for the startups.
Out of hundreds of applicants, 12 impressive startups were welcomed into this first cohort of Acceleration Services. The entrepreneurs in the cohort are men and women from across Iraq and Syria who run scalable, tech or tech-enabled startups. These startups include: Kurdsale, a car marketplace app in Erbil; Seven Professions, a home services app operating in Baghdad and Federal Iraq; Atshan for Water Delivery, a water-delivery app in Samarra; Hopeful Hands, an online and brick-and-mortar retailer selling handicrafts created by displaced women; and KESK, a green-building consulting and product company that operates across the country.
Five One Labs has partnered with impressive local consulting agencies to provide high quality localized consulting to the startups - including Brick Lane, who is generously sponsoring the program, and Grei Agency for marketing, EasyBooks for financial management, Erbil ManPower for HR and team management, and Hawre Surchi Company and Al Hadeel Al Hasan Law, who is also a program sponsor, for legal support. Investment Readiness and technological support are provided directly by Five One Labs experts.
About Five One Labs
Five One Labs is a startup incubator and entrepreneurship ecosystem builder headquartered in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) that supports diverse entrepreneurs in launching scalable, innovative businesses. Since launching in Iraq in 2017, Five One has been at the forefront of the country’s rapidly growing entrepreneurial ecosystem and has supported displaced as well as local entrepreneurs to launch innovative startups.