Exclusive Q&A with Arabic content giant Mawdoo3 following acquisition of SuperMama
The world’s biggest Arabic content platform, Mawdoo3 acquired Egyptian motherhood website SuperMama for an undisclosed amount on Thursday the 5th of December. Recently, MAGNiTT had the opportunity to exclusively interview Rami Alqawasmi, CEO of Mawdoo3 to gain some insights on the investment.
Tell us briefly about Mawdoo3. In layman's terms, how exactly does your platform work?
Mawdoo3.com is the leading online Arabic content platform that provides readers with premium content from trustworthy sources covering every subject which users are looking for, seeking to enrich the online culture for all Arabs around the world through the use of new and innovative technologies.
Artificial intelligence: Mawdoo3’s group started a journey in the field of Artificial Intelligence, with a particular focus on Arabic NLP tools capable of covering the Arabic dialects and developed the region’s first Arabic speaking digital assistant, “Salma”. Additionally we offer Salma as a B2B service to clients such as banks.
What was the opportunity that you saw in acquiring SuperMama?
SuperMama is the number one destination for mothers in MENA and the team is composed mainly by women. At Mawdoo3 we really care about empowering women in the workplace and we are proud to be able to say that the Mawdoo3 team is formed by 63% women.
Additionally, like Mawdoo3, SuperMama provides its users with high quality Arabic content, but focusing on mothers, and specialized websites fall within our strategy moving forward.
What’s your big-picture vision for the future?
To provide high quality Arabic content to all of our users.
Can you tell us more about your plans for ‘Salma’ - the Arabic version of Siri or Alexa? Where does the SuperMama acquisition fit into that?
We will be adding many new features during the next year, and with Supermama, many of these features will be focusing on mothers.
What advice would you give yourself 5 years ago?
Don't take any decisions which could restrict your future growth plans unless they are strictly necessary.
We were also able to catch up with SuperMama Co-founder and COO, Zeinab Samir. Here’s what she said about the next steps for her and her team; “ As an online publisher in MENA, it's a step forward to join a promising conglomerate like Mawdoo3. A lot of plans are being cooked to take SuperMama beyond content. Operations of SuperMama will still be in Egypt, by the same team and expanding. The core value of SuperMama will always be our compass for its strategy, but now we can think big with Mawdoo3.”