Startups are bubbling up in Tehran, where another version of Google play is taking shape. In Iran, home to a flourishing tech ecosystem with startups and accelerators, a group of young entrepreneurs are launching Cafe Bazaar , the first and most popular smartphone application marketplace for Persian speaking countries. The company offers over 25,000 downloadable Iranian and international apps for gaming, social media, messaging and other uses, receiving around 20 million visits a week.
The startup came to fill an impending void in the market, as Google Play and Apple Store are difficult to use in Iran due to sanctions to international banking transactions. “I felt that we can create everything inside Iran ourselves,” Cafe Bazaar’s founder Hessam Armandehi told The Washington Post. Applications like Metro, Athan Time, Poem Time, and Qibla Compass are the helm of the company’s success.
