12 new Lebanese startups
November 7, 2018
In previous years, attending a startup demo day in Beirut where hopeful graduates of accelerator programs present their projects and pitch for recognition and financial investments tended to require a will to smile politely and some tolerance for boredom. But in September and October of this year, demo days and startup competitions with Lebanese entrants some held in Lebanon and others international proved to be exciting, prompting genuine smiles all around.
Officials and observers from accelerators and financial entities in the entrepreneurship ecosystem that Executive spoke with eagerly agreed that the startup pipelines this year are exciting. Such protestations from these players were, of course, unsurprising, but nevertheless convincing; they confirm that the passion and competence of startup teams, and the quality and diversity of the projects presented, are increasing.
The biggest startup bankruptcy since Circular 331
November 7, 2018
It may have all started six years ago, with the zone of low air pressure that moved westward over the Atlantic, encountering large amounts of relatively warm water in the middle of nowhere. The resulting tropical cyclone became known as Hurricane Sandy and caused havoc in eight countries in the Americas, taking more than 230 lives and destroying properties along its northward trail through the Caribbean and along the Eastern seaboard of the United States. Damages were an estimated $65 billion in the US with $42 billion in New York State alone.
One reading of the series of misfortunes behind the mid-2018 shuttering of Bookwitty, a star in the firmament of Lebanese entrepreneurship, was that it all began during Sandy, when the company’s warehouse in New York was flooded. Inventory and equipment were destroyed, and sales revenue lost to the tune of more than $1 million (technicalities and legalities meant this los
Entrepreneurship and the digital economy in Lebanon
November 7, 2018
When making the rounds through the Beirut Digital District (BDD) to assess how Lebanon’s entrepreneurship system is developing, there is a lot to observe. Over the past five years, there have been several exercises usually with significant self-promotion and marketing to map this emerging system in all its components. Invariably, such exercises seemed incomplete by the time they were done, simply because the entrepreneurship realm was changing and expanding faster than it could be mapped.
Driven into existence by the initiative of Banque du Liban’s Circular 331, from the moment of the circular’s publication in August 2013, the ecosystem has grown with each passing year (with Executive committed to publishing annual observations on its progress). This year is no exception. Regardless of the months of political wrangling in the halls of the Grand Serail and Parliament, and also regardless of deteriorating con
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