The online Arabic bookseller Jamalon announced yesterday that it had “successfully completed the first leg of its Series B funding round,” raising more than $10M in investments to help scale up its publishing and bookselling activities:
The field of online Arabic book sales has a few worldwide competitors, including Neel wa Furat, Arabic Bookshop, and Jamalon.
Jamalon was founded in Amman, Jordan in 2010 by young Palestinian-Jordanian entrepreneur Ala’ Alsallal, with a $14,000 investment from Aramex founder Fadi Ghandour. The online bookshop quickly expanded its reach across the region by creating relationships with Arabic-language publishers. It now has offices in Amman, Dubai, and Riyadh, as well as fulfillment centers in Amman, Beirut, Dubai, Riyadh, and London.
According to the news release, Jamalon now “offers more than 10 million publications in both Arabic and English” and works with “3000 Arabic publishers and 27,000 English-language publishers in a market valued at $1.7 billion.”
Jamalon plans to use the newly raised funds to increase the reach of Arabic books worldwide and to scale up its print-on-demand service. The release particularly pointed to Jamlon’s desire to “cement their leading position in the Saudi Arabian market.”
The online bookseller also recently launched a partnership with UNRWA that supports donations to Palestinian refugee children.
