Jordan’s Book Summary Start-up Wajeez Raises $3 Million in Pre-Series A Round - MENA startups, innovation, and tech news

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Jordan’s Book Summary Start-up Wajeez Raises $3 Million in Pre-Series A Round
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Jordan’s Book Summary Start-up Wajeez Raises $3 Million in Pre-Series A Round

Ahely Bhowmick, 2 years ago 0 3 min read 673

Jordan-based EdTech startup and book summary platform Wazeej, has successfully raised $3 million in a pre-series A round. The funding round that was led by technology venture capital fundSTV, also witnessed the participation of Abu Dhabi’s Shorooq Partners, Jordan’sMawdoo3, and Wise Venture.

Founders

Wajeez was set up in December 2020 by Mohammad Zatara, former chief executive of Amman-based e-book store Faylasof, and Rami Abu Jbara, former executive atAsharq News and Sky News Arabia. Jbara now leads Wajeez’s content strategy as a co-founder and chief content officer.

About Wajeez

Wajeez offers Arabic audio and text summaries of global and local non-fiction books. Wajeez’s library has 15-minute condensed versions of more than 3,500 audio and text-based books which the users can access through its mobile app for Android and iOS. It is, however, not free access. The user has to purchase an annual subscription for $47.99 or avail of a monthly plan for $4.99. Users of the free tier get to read one summary every day.

Target Market

Although there are over 400 million Arabic speakers globally, there is relatively less Arabic content available. People in the region often prefer condensed versions of books and content, rather than reading full books. Arabic-speaking Middle East and North Africa (Mena) users comprise 7% of the world’s internet users, while Arabic content constitutes only 3% of the overall content. This highlights a big gap between demand and content, and Wajeez is working towards closing that gap. Through Wajeez, anyone can have the opportunity to distill the key points from the most recognized and award-winning non-fiction books, in Arabic, saving a lot of time.

Rising Success

In addition to text and audio summaries, the app-based platform recently expanded its selection to include 5–15-minute shortened podcasts (WajeezCast). Presently, it offers summaries of more than 50 podcasts that can be accessed by any user on the app, even those who are on the free tier.

Since its official launch, the company has garnered an audience of 800,000 users in only 7 months. The company has also recently introduced an offering for corporates that allows employees to get access to Wajeez’s summaries, at discounted prices. Wajeez attributes its early success to its carefully curated selection of summaries and the deep vetting and quality control process that they follow for uploading the summaries on their platform. “We are happy to partner with a fast-growing startup like Wajeez, which marks our first investment in the Levant”, said Talal Damen, a Senior Associate at STV.

Future Plans

Through this newly acquired fund, Wajeez plans to add more summaries to its library, establish new B2B partnerships, and expand the userbase. It is also exploring to develop more products in other languages such as Urdu and Turkish in its next phase of growth. Wajeez offers the greatest library of non-fiction summaries in the region and the company has created a flywheel that will keep on strengthening with more time, content, and listeners. It is definitely an achievement for the region.

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