There’s no denying that Bahrain’s startup ecosystem keeps surprising us with the number of startups popping out per year. StartUp Bahrain is a community initiative that brings together all the pillars of the ecosystem (entrepreneurs, corporates, investors, incubators, educational institutions, and the Bahrain Government) to promote startup culture in the Kingdom. The startups are receiving more exposure than ever, and the buzz around Bahrain’s innovative ecosystem is out!
Curious to find out what 2019 holds for these startups? We’re not ones to say or know what’s going to happen, but we can assure you that it’s going to be a great one. Without hesitation and in no particular order, here are 9 startups you should look out for in 2019:
- Skiplino: Co-founded by Zaman A. Zaman, Alharith Alatawi, and Ricardo Gaspar, Skiplino is a queue management system and app that allows businesses to take care of long queues smartly and efficiently. The app lets people queue up in advance and avoid physically waiting in long lines; this is all done with the help of a cloud-based system that can help monitor data related to queues. Skiplino also recently received seed funding from Kuwait venture capital firm, KISP Ventures.
- ONEGCC: Founded by Alharith AlAtawi, ONEGCC is an online digital job platform that supports the nationalization of the Gulf job market. What distinguishes ONEGCC is the fact that it uses skill matching to match job seekers to establishments with vacancies. The platform as well ranks job seekers based on their specialization and provides them with insights and tools required to get the job they want. ONEGCC recently received top honor and snatched first place in the first ever Pitch@Palace GCC.
- Malaeb: Co-founded by Ahmed Alrawi and Yasser Abdulaziz, Malaeb is a community-based app made for sports enthusiasts. The app, which is available on iOS and Android lets users book football fields on demand. Not only that, but the app also enables you to create your own football team, challenge other teams, and find new teammates when you just don’t have enough players. With their expansion to the UAE earlier this year, there’s no denying that this startup has great things coming for it in the new year.
- AlRawi: Co-founded by Hala Sulaiman, Mohamed Ebrahim, and Ameera Mohamed, AlRawi aims to improve readership of books in the Arab world by creating the largest interactive Arabic-language audiobook library and provide accessibility to books and cultural content to improve readership of books. AlRawi recently won both the People’s Choice Award at Pitch@Palace GCC and Pitch@Palace Global.
- Temr.cm: The startup is Bahrain’s first ever Total Electronic Medical Records and Clinic Management (or Temr.cm for short). Temr.cm will allow their users to fully digitize their clinical operations, from medical reports to administrative and business solutions on a single platform. Temr.cm was also recently crowned victorious in Seedstars Bahrain and is going to represent StartUp Bahrain at Seedstars Summit in Lausanne.
- Smart Crowd: Founded by Siddiq Farid, Smart Crowd is the first and only technology-driven investment real estate crowdfunding platform in the Middle East. Their goal is to make real estate investment easier and accessible to everyone. The startup recently scored $600K in seed funding from Shorooq Investments and won Bahrain’s Runway to Web Summit.
- Inagrab: a retail platform that allows retailers to scale smart was founded by Hussain Haji and Mustafa Marhama. The platform is there to aid retailers to get the profit they deserve by using smart technology to determine when is the best time and where to promote their products. This year Inagrab introduced a new AI feature that will be integrated called Betsie. Betsie is an online personal artificial intelligence that will help retailers with product distribution but pushing their products to websites that are recommended by Betsie.
- WNNA: An intuitive recommendation engine that is powered by AI, WNNA is a startup that recommends activities based on the decisions you usually make as well as the location you’re at. WNNA does this by going through different sources on the internet to get you the personalized information you need to make a decision. WNNA was founded by Ali Mohsen and has been recently accepted into Silicon Valley’s global accelerator, The Batchery.
- Nakheel: Co-founded by Mohamed Khalil, and Khaled Metwally, A startup that was part of Brinc’s summer lineup and a winner of StartUp! Germany Pitch Night is an Internet of Things (IoT) based solution enabling early detection of Red Palm Weevil in palm tree farms so that farmers can take action to save the trees before it is too late.
There you have it 9 startups you should look out for in the year 2019 and keep on your radar. We wish all these startups the best in the upcoming year and are looking forward to finding out what new startups pop out in 2019.
Make sure you follow StartUp Bahrain on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn to learn more about the growing startup ecosystem here in Bahrain.