Dubai - MENA Herald: ArabiaWeather Inc., the Middle East’s largest weather company, has announced a new round of funding totalling US$5 million, following the US$2.1 million it raised earlier this year. The current cycle, among the largest venture capital deals raised in the region in 2015, is led by Badia Impact Fund and Wamda Capital, and includes the participation of DASH Ventures and Dubai-based Jabbar Internet Group.
Commenting on the investment, Badia Impact Fund Managing Partner Namek Zu’bi, said: "We were thrilled with ArabiaWeather’s development since our initial investment in 2014, so we decided to lead the company's Series A round alongside Wamda Capital, Jabbar Internet Group and DASH Ventures.”
ArabiaWeather will primarily use the funding to make strategic investments in expanding its weather offering for businesses and consumers in the Middle East. Investments will also be made in the company’s proprietary unique weather technology and extensive network of automatic weather stations across the region that serve as the backbone for ArabiaWeather’s innovative range of products and services based on hyper-local weather information.
On the enterprise side, ArabiaWeather will further invest in developing integrated industry-specific solutions for businesses in the Middle East. The decision-support solutions enable existing customers in the aviation sector including a number regional airports and several Emirati, Saudi and Jordanian airlines that are particularly affected by weather conditions to save costs, enhance safety and drive operational efficiency.
Khaled Talhouni, Partner at Wamda Capital, added: “The funding is fully dedicated to further growing the company, which has established an exceptional track record as a premier provider of highly useful weather information in the region. We believe there is a true opportunity to further build ArabiaWeather’s portfolio of decision-support weather solutions for the benefit of companies and consumers in the region.”
ArabiaWeather also serves 35 million consumers in the GCC region with weather forecasts and related information, delivered through its flagship mobile application and web presence. Having rapidly evolved into one of the most popular Arabic mobile applications on both iOS and Android platforms, refining ArabiaWeather’s mobile application is one of the key areas for investment on the company’s agenda in the months to come. Given this priority, ArabiaWeather has plans to expand its video coverage and content, and launch new specialized mobile applications targeted at weather experts.
Mohammed Al-Shaker, CEO at ArabiaWeather, said: “We are happy to work with some of the fastest growing venture capital firms in the region and are more than confident that this partnership will prove a huge success. The rapid growth of our company over the past years has clearly indicated the ever-growing demand for forward-thinking, accurate weather solutions in this region, and we are excited to see our hyper-local products thrive. ArabiaWeather is proud to provide cutting-edge weather services to leading enterprises and looks forward to further strengthening these relationships by offering the best weather forecasting solutions the region has seen to date”.
ArabiaWeather’s products run on proprietary algorithms and numerical models, which transform raw and isolated weather data points through Super Computers, into processed, organized, and packaged weather information. This enables the company to offer hyper-local, highly accurate and precise weather forecasts for hundreds of thousands of locations across the Middle East. To further improve the accuracy of its hyper-local weather observations, the company also has plans to crowd-source data through its 35 million users.
