TEHRAN, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Dutch-based International Internet Investment Coöperatief (IIIC) is planning to invest 38 million euros (47 U.S. dollars) in Iranian tech firm Hezar Dastan Holdings, Financial Tribune daily reported Wednesday.
Hezar Dastan Holdings is the owner of Café Bazaar (major local Android app market) and Divar (online classified ads service).
"Through the investment, the Dutch business will acquire a 10 percent stake in the holding," Café Bazaar's co-founder and chairman of the board Hessam Armandehi was quoted as saying.
"Our management structure will remain intact after the investment," Armandehi said, adding that "the money will be used to develop new services including a cloud service."
According to the daily, Café Bazaar is in the process of charting new territory including offering fintech and e-wallet services and also launch a navigation software that works on smartphones and tablets with GPS support and provides turn-by-turn navigation information.
"We are planning to turn Café Bazaar into a unicorn startup," Armandehi said.
Founded in 2010, Café Bazaar is Iran's largest Android app market. An estimated 36 million people have Bazaar's app installed on their handsets.
On a daily basis, 4.7 million apps are downloaded from the service and every month the business sells 7.9 million applications. Close to 130,000 softwares and 30,000 games are available on Bazaar.
Also, Divar is Iran's leading classified ads online service. Operating through a website under the address divar.ir along with Android and iOS applications the customers can find anything on the services from a secondhand hairdryer to apartments. Divar has 25 million active users in Iran and 60 million ads have been published on the service since it was launched in 2013.
