Arabnet Arabnet

El Wafeyat might not be the most common startup you may have ever come across. It seems like ElWafeyat is taking center stage on the Arab startup scene.

Like its competitor in Lebanon, Khoolood, the Egypt-based ElWafeyat is a platform for online obituaries.

A niche initiative, par excellence, this startup aims to slowly replace the admittedly dying newspaper business by digitizing obituaries and making spreading the news of someone’s passing relatively easy and fast.

­

“A normal obituary in the newspapers costs people hundreds and thousands of dollars yet lasts for only one day,” said co-founder Omar Hamdalla.

Obituaries here do not mean the long, in-depth articles going through someone’s life achievements and service, but rather the brief announcement one makes to family and friends so that they can present condolences in person, a tradition in most Middle Eastern societies.

ElWafeyat presents a much speedier and up-to-date alternative to sending the obituary text to a print publication, a time consuming and costly procedure in Egypt, the startup’s home country.

ElWafeyat is the result of the united efforts invested by five people, co-founders Yousef El Sammaa (also CEO), Nesma El Far, Omar Hamdalla, Con O'Donnell, and Ashraf Maklad.

Technology should serve the people who created it, in good and bad times alike. Some would agree with this statement, and some wouldn’t, but the amount of unpleasant effort platforms like AlWafeyat saves its users is undeniable.

It all began when one of the founders had to deal with the loss of a loved one and had to arrange the funeral and announce the news to his friends and next of kin.

ElWafayet has managed to catch the attention of big regional and international investors, including but not limited to Dave McClure. Incubated by Flat6labs in Egypt, the startup received funding by Cairo Angels and Fawaz Al Gosaibi Holdings. Recently, they got funded and incubated by 500 Startups, one of Silicon Valley’s top accelerators.

Announcing and disseminating the unfortunate news, ElWafeat comes to the help of the many struggling to get the word out in a timely manner.  People can then turn to other, more important concerns, such as supporting each other through the trying times surrounding losing a loved one.

Operating on a freemium model, ElWafeyat allows people to create brief announcements for free and publish them to announce the place and time of certain events related to the incident, like the funeral and burial. Users can also invite people in their network and friends to attend.

There is a paid option whereby the obituary would make it onto the website’s homepage and would be included in the daily newsletter, which reaches more than 15K subscribers though e-mail.

Posting an obituary takes a few clicks and inputting basic information about the deceased. “The idea behind [the process] is to help [users] announce the burial news and share it quickly across all platforms and channels, whether mobile or web,” said co-founder Yousef El Sammaa. “Recipients of the announcement may check the exact map, location, and time of the funeral and click that they're attending; they can re-share the news with other people in their network, too.”

ElWafeyat also maps out users’ social networks and matches them to their family connections in order to better notify them when someone in their network passes away. Paid condolences are also offered through online, in-app and Telegram tools.

The platform is now focusing on expanding the user database of both readers and free subscribers. “One-way to do this is by aggregating the daily obituaries that are published in all the newspapers on our website, and posting them before people actually get the newspaper,” revealed Hamdalla.

Soon, the platform will allow people to crowd fund for a social cause in the name of the person who passed away and create other initiatives in a way of commemorating them.

“Our obituary is no longer just an announcement, but it’s an everlasting memorial, where people can share memories, pictures, stories or even crowd-fund for a charity cause, keeping the good memories of their dear ones alive forever,” said co-founder Nesma El Far.

ElWafeyat will hopefully be operating in other countries in the Middle East sometime in 2015.

The founders remembered their greatest achievements, including hitting the 100,000-user milestone way before they had anticipated, getting into two of the most respectable accelerators (flat6labs and 500Startups) as well as closing deals with people from three different continents.

“My personal favorite achievement, though, is every time we get positive feedback from actual users who recommend our services and really believe in what we offer,” added El Far, on a final note.

An old Indian tale tells the story of someone who lost his best friend and suffered so much that the pain was as heavy as a huge, hefty bag of pebbles. The boy’s family, brokenhearted at the sight of their child suffering so much, each took a certain amount of pebbles, put in a bag and tied the bag around their ankle, making the burden on the boy’s shoulders less heavy.

This, I think, is what ElWafeyat is here to do, and it looks like it’s here to stay.