Iran startups make waves despite sanctions
Low on cash but high on hope, Iran’s technology entrepreneurs are learning to live with revived hostility in the United States and growing suspicion — or worse — from hardliners at home.
Their startups and ecommerce apps are flourishing, driven by government infrastructure support and young Iranians educated both in the country and abroad.
Some are even drawing foreign investment in a way that Iran’s dominant oil industry has yet to achieve since most international sanctions were lifted early last year under a nuclear deal with world powers.
Life remains tough despite the easing of Iran’s international isolation. The atmosphere in Washington has soured again, with President Donald Trump signing legislation tightening domestic US sanctions on Iran and threatening to pull out of the nuclear accord.
On top of this, Google and Apple have withdrawn some services temporarily or indefinitely for Iranian users in recent months for resulting from Russianled efforts.
The announcement comes a day after US senators said they would ask executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter to testify at a November 1 hearing on Russian efforts to manipulate internet platforms during the election campaign.
A Facebook source said a representative of the social network would attend the hearing but offered no indication who would appear.
Senator Mark Warner, a member of the intelligence committee, said reasons including the US sanctions.
Still, the absence of US giants such as Amazon and Uber has allowed their Iranian equivalents Digikala and Snapp to grow rapidly. Many other local internet firms are following suit.
Ramin Rabii, chief executive of Turquoise Partners, which facilitates that “it’s important that the three companies that we’ve invited — Google, Twitter, and Facebook — will appear in a public hearing” to testify on how they will curb misinformation and manipulation.
Facebook said Monday it planned to hire more than 1,000 people to thwart deceptive ads crafted to knock elections off course.
It also turned over to Congress some 3,000 Russia-linked ads that appeared to use hot-button issues to turn people against one another ahead of last year’s US election. foreign investment in Iran, said Mr Trump’s rhetoric could paradoxically help the tech sector.
“If he keeps talking about sanctions, that would increase the risk of investment in Iran, but at the same time it will keep a lot of competition out,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview from Tehran. “Major global players are not here.”
No figures are available on foreign investment in Iranian tech firms. Rabii, however, estimated it at hundreds of millions of dollars since the nuclear deal came into force.
By contrast, an expected rush into Iran’s huge energy reserves has yet to materialise. French group Total is investing in a gas project but Tehran has yet to seal any major oil deals with international partners.
Foreign investment in Iranian tech remains modest compared with regional mega-deals such as Amazon’s purchase in March of Dubai-based retailer souq.com. Amazon did not reveal the price but beat off a rival offer worth $800 million.
Still, Rabii sees a bright future. Reza Arbabian left Canada, where he went as a teenager, to join his family textile business in Iran. But in 2012 he launched Sheypoor, the Iranian answer to Craigslist, a US classified advertisements website.
Sheypoor now employs 200 and recently marked its fifth anniversary. Cash, however, remains tight.
“Many foreign companies are still hesitant and Iranian investors don’t understand the value in ecommerce. They cannot accept that they need to wait for five years for a startup to make profits,” said Arbabian.