“It is said that there is a fine line between stupidity and courage. Believe me, it’s true. I bypassed mine a few years ago. I only realized it later. Now I enjoy it. But I would be lying if I said that doing business in Iraq is simple. It is not at all ”.
Matteo Mantovani he is 40 years old. Modenese, he has been in Iraq for 12 years where he worked first in energy companies, then as a consultant at McKinsey. Time and contacts needed to understand the Iraqi reality. Then in 2021 he decides to resign to try to scale the country’s nascent digital economy with his own company.
A Baghdad foundation Front desk, which in Arabic is an encouragement to move forward. At the beginning it is an app that offers a car rental service with driver, based on the Uber model. But step by step it expands the services offered: home delivery of food, shopping, integrating everything into a single application that is now used by about half a million people.
The rise of Baly, from taxis to food delivery
“The taxi service allowed us to scale a market that had a single competitor here, Careem. Once we reached the critical mass we started to integrate the other services. We are present in the capital and in Basra. We plan the expansion to Kerbala and Najaf. And soon I will visit Falluja and Mosul ”. Mantovani lists the Iraqi cities in which he works almost unaware of the memories, of the images they evoke in the listener. He smiles. “I understand, it is difficult to think that in the places of war today there is excitement and a desire to do business. But it is so. Here there is fertile ground and a good entrepreneurial culture is being created which has already entered the radar of international investment funds, attracted by the still untapped potential of a country with 40 million inhabitants, good internet penetration and many young people “, he says. .
Baly now has 200 employees. All Iraqis. It is the Iraqi digital company with the most Iraqis hired, says Mantovani. “We hire 20-year-olds and invest in them. Unfortunately, there are no 30-year-olds with advanced work experience here, able to support you immediately. So we rely on the youngest. Sometimes they make mistakes and we can’t always afford them. But in the end they pay off our efforts, ”says the entrepreneur.
Rocket Internet support. A bridgehead for investment in Iraq
Baly is not an innovative company like the others. It has behind it realities such as Rocket Internet, the German giant that has created companies such as Zalando and Delivery Hero. Rocket funded Baly with $ 10 million. A record in Iraq, where there are just 127 startups. Money to expand, but also skills and a not just strategic support that have allowed the company to go into profit since the first year and to record a growth rate of 50% per month.
“I don’t know if we can define ourselves as a startup. In some ways we are. But with Rocket the Internet is a bit different, you have a certain advantage ”, says Mantovani. “We are a bit of a bridgehead for investors and other companies. You cannot come to Iraq and think about starting to do business and invest. There are dynamics that need to be understood. A culture to know. And to enter into the order of ideas that a peer of mine here has already lived through three wars, even at the age when I was playing war with my brother ”, she confesses.
“Iraq is a reality to understand. We don’t improvise entrepreneurs here”
Mantovani now lives between Iraq and Dubai, where he moved with his wife and son nine years ago. “But I spend 80% of my time in Baghdad, you can’t get away from here too often.” Problems often bring him back to Iraq. He recalls: “A few weeks ago we had a problem with employee payments. The riders started threatening to smash our office. I was on vacation in Italy and I had to rush back. Fortunately, no damage ”.
Or again: “It may happen that if a local politician resigns and hundreds of people block the streets. So, without warning. Or get used to the idea that during school exams the whole country does not have internet, and without internet we have to shut down ”. Difficulty. But always overcome. Because for Mantovani the balance of his year and a half of business in Baghdad is positive. “He will get even better,” he says confidently.
“I have seen Iraq in all its phases. In shambles. Dangerous. The situation has been calm for four years now. It is not Dubai, but you live well. I play soccer and tennis, sometimes a cinema. A normal life. There is excitement here and we want to stay here and grow. A goal? Reach a billion dollars in value and create the first Iraqi unicorn ”. A hope, with some pieces already pointed. What is needed for a country that has been left in ruins by thirty years of wars.