15•January 6, 2025

Business LANDSCAPE Magazine Issue 15

#Iraq Market Research#Iraq#Startup Market Iraq#Innovation in Iraq#Startups in Iraq#Iraq Tech Ecosystem#Iraq Private Sector#Qi#Qi Card#digital zone#Super Qi

January 6, 202511 Articles

Issue Overview

We are pleased to present the 15th edition of Business LANDSCAPE Magazine, offering an in-depth exploration of Iraq's rapidly evolving business, tech, and economic landscapes. This issue brings together exclusive interviews, research insights, and real-life stories of innovation, illustrating the progress and challenges faced by Iraq’s entrepreneurs.

Articles in this Issue

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From Pandemic Seed Rounds to Exits: Iraq’s Business LANDSCAPE Enters a New Era

Iraq’s pandemic-era startups are maturing from seed/Series A to exits, led by Qi Group’s acquisitions (Digital Zone, Miswag, Pure Platform) and the launch of Super Qi, a super app opening mass distribution. Exits are spreading (Eduba, Safr), while entertainment and logistics digitalize via 1001, Ticket Zone, and Boxy. With looming 5G and better internet, Iraq’s ecosystem is poised for faster growth and regional expansion.

ArticleSafwa Salim5 min

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Super Qi: Empowering Iraqi Startups and Redefining Iraq’s Fintech Future

ISC (Qi) has evolved from Iraq’s pioneering e-payments player (1M cards by 2010; 25K agents; 10M+ active cards) into a lifestyle super app. Launched in Sept, Super Qi incubates mini-apps and games, giving startups infrastructure, training, and distribution to 10M users—powering 54× growth at Digital Zone (7M 2024 transactions) and 3× at Miswag. By mainstreaming salary domiciliation and everyday digital payments, ISC is reshaping consumer behavior, expanding financial inclusion, and removing distribution/payment hurdles for Iraqi startups.

ArticleLuay Al Obaidi 10 min

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Qi Group Acquires Digital Zone in a Historic 8-Figure Deal, Driving Iraq’s Digital Future

Qi Group acquired Digital Zone in an eight-figure deal, integrating it into Qi Services and SuperQi to scale Iraq’s digital goods, ticketing, and travel. The collaboration hit 50× YoY revenue and 1M+ MAUs, signaling Qi’s shift from payments to a lifestyle super-app for its 11M+ cardholders.

ArticlePress Release10 min

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Iraq’s Digital Banking Evolution: A Cashless Future in the Making

Iraq’s banking is rapidly digitizing under CBI-led reforms (e-payments, salary domiciliation, digital bank licenses). Fintechs and policies (tax e-payments, cashless fuel) propelled adoption: bank accounts 1.36M→13.2M, cards 6.37M→19.7M, POS 1K→23K, digital transactions 2.4B→9.62T IQD. Next: skill up youth and pull 94T IQD in cash into the formal economy.

ArticleAhmed Al-Hashimy15 min

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Navigating the AI Startup Scene: Key Principles for Success

Successful AI startups pair human judgment with AI speed to ship practical, market-ready products. Prioritize research-driven execution, lean/efficient models and MLOps (e.g., quantization/pruning), and trustworthy design (ethics, sustainability, verifiability). Examples—Hominis.io (ethical LLM), Hominis CI (agile MLOps), and Verifai (real-time fact-checking)—show how small teams can create high-impact tools.

ArticleTarry Singh10 min

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Universities as Innovation Hubs: Building Tomorrow’s Workforce

Universities must pivot from legacy models to innovation hubs that tightly align with market needs—mixing theory + practice, building soft/hard skills, and embracing digital ops, AI, global ties, entrepreneurship, lifelong upskilling, and sustainability—exemplified by Al-Shaab University’s skills-first, fully digital blueprint.

ArticleProf. Dr. Yousif Al-Dunainawi10 min

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The Emergence of Iraq’s Gig Economy: A New Workforce Model

Iraq’s gig economy is emerging as a powerful new workforce model—opening global, remote opportunities for youth but still hampered by job-matching gaps, payment frictions, pricing uncertainty, and communication barriers. Job Studio steps in to bridge these gaps with multi-payment support, real-time Arabic translation, advanced search, CV and AI tools—already serving 10k+ registrants, 500+ active users, and 300 companies. With coordinated support from government, business, and platforms, freelancing can become a durable growth engine for Iraq.

ArticleAmanj Ali15 min

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Internships in Iraq: An Overview of the Transition into the Labor Market, the Existing Internship Models, Benefits, and Challenges

Internships are key to bridging Iraq’s university-to-work gap; strong pilots exist (Careem, Miswag, IREX, telcos), but scaling is held back by weak CDCs, low incentives/budgets, and rote state placements. The fix: pay interns, make programs skills-first (hard/soft), adopt hybrid summer models, professionalize CDCs, deepen company–NGO partnerships, and raise student awareness.

ArticleKAPITA’s Research Team20 min

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The Rise of Paid Streaming Services in the Iraqi Market: A Brief on Market Potential, Customer Behavior, and Challenges

Iraq’s paid streaming market is rising on the back of high internet/mobile penetration and growing digital payments, with local players (1001, Almanasa, Njoom Al-Rabiaa) gaining traction. Consumers are mobile-first and price/convenience driven, but growth is constrained by rampant piracy, weak copyright enforcement, cash-heavy habits, limited localization, and patchy internet.

ArticleKAPITA’s Research Team20 min

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Business Landscape Interview: Ahmad Fahad Al-Shagra

In this interview, Mr. Ahmad Al-Shagra reflects on key stages of his career, sharing insights from his journey as an entrepreneur and the challenges of building successful startups. He shares his assessment of the EdTech scene in Iraq and also discusses his transition from education to media and entertainment. Drawing from his extensive experience, he provides a research-based assessment of the Iraqi ecosystem, identifying critical gaps in skill development

ArticleAhmad Fahad Al-Shagra20 min

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Business Landscape Interview: Al-Hussain Jassim

In this interview, Dr. Al-Hussain discusses Saleem's story and the challenges faced by technology-based startups in Iraq’s healthcare sector. He highlights the app's unique offerings, such as home healthcare services and psychiatric therapy, and plans to integrate video consultations, teleradiology, and an AI-powered recommendation system.

ArticleAl-Hussain Jassim20 min

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