Behind the Curtain: Why We Selected Iraq’s Baly

When Martin Rohland first considered moving to Iraq in 2020, he was alerted of the dangers. 

On a market research mission to Suleimaniyah, in Kurdistan, locals told him and his friend about the perils of the drive to the region’s capital — which dated back well before the US invasion in 2003, to when the area was ripped apart by civil war in the 1990s. They decided to take a detour and ended up spending an extra day road-tripping through gorgeous mountain ranges and waterfalls. Upon arriving in Erbil, they discovered a vibrant city with nightclubs and bars and people on the streets. “Many things that we weren’t expecting to find in Iraq,” Martin said.

The more they explored, the more they realized that beneath the surface of geopolitical headlines lay a warm population of over 45 million, half of it under the age of 25. 

Martin — an entrepreneurial German with a strong sense of adventure and extensive experience in emerging markets — would return a year later to launch Baly, a ride-hailing and food-delivery app. This time, he landed in Baghdad. “None of my partners had ever been,” he said. “Some of them are also German, and we were a little concerned about the security.” So they booked him a protected airport escort. “It was the most expensive taxi ride of my life. When we arrived at the Baly office, the team started laughing at me.” The locals sent the armed escort away, and Martin has been taking Baly taxis since that day. 

Now that he’s lived in the country’s capital for three years, he sees why. “I honestly think Baghdad is safer than London or Berlin at night.” Convincing outsiders of that and the market’s enormous potential isn’t as straightforward, but Martin enjoys the challenge. Now a super-app with millions of customers, Baly is rapidly becoming the backbone of Iraq’s digital transformation.

Baly follows a strong precedent that Endeavor has seen firsthand since our founding in 1997 —  super-apps have successfully digitized cash-based economies elsewhere, with Iran’s Snapp! and UAE’s Careem being regional role models in the Middle East and Colombia’s Rappi in Latin America — now worth more than $5B, becoming the country’s first unicorn in 2018.

“This is about finding those next uncharted territories, the next places where people are fearful about whether it’ll work or not,” said Marc Cho, Director of Entrepreneur Selection at Endeavor. 

A fast-moving journey

Becoming an Endeavor Entrepreneur is a comprehensive process that encompasses several review panels and culminates in an International Selection Panel (ISP), taking an average of 12-18 months from start to finish. Martin was selected in just nine months. In fact, by the age of 23, he already had more experience under his belt than most people achieve in a lifetime.

Fresh from Cambridge University, Martin joined Germany’s Rocket Internet, the giant venture builder with a portfolio of over 200 companies across six continents. His role allowed him to take on new responsibilities for different companies every 3-6 months. Among them was dealing with Rocket’s e-commerce portfolio in Pakistan, later selling it to Alibaba, and helping to expand the $7B global food-delivery group Delivery Hero in Canada.

Young and driven, he made an impression. This led to an introduction to Eyad Alkassar and Mahmoud Fouz, co-founders of Snapp!, at the time a relatively small ride-hailing app in Iran.

“He came to us very young but highly recommended,” Eyad said.

Based in Tehran as CFO and COO, Martin helped transform the modest operation, doing 30,000 daily orders, into a super-app with 15 subsidiary brands and five million daily orders. Today, Snapp! is the largest technology company in the Middle East, and the fourth largest delivery provider in the world. “If Iran wasn’t a sanctioned country, Snapp! could easily be a $10B company,” Martin mentions.

When Endeavor asked his Snapp! partners, Eyad and Mahmoud, both already Endeavor Entrepreneurs, about Martin joining the process of becoming an Endeavor Entrepreneur himself, they didn’t skip a beat.

“If you want to support one entrepreneur in Iraq, it’s him,” Eyad told us. “And I think you should support entrepreneurs in Iraq, because it’s the second largest Arab country after Egypt population-wise, and the internet economy will explode soon. Martin is not the kind of person who will leave the country if the local situation gets tough.”

So, Martin went on to explore Iraq as the next untapped market that could breed a product similar to Snapp!.

“I learned from Rocket Internet that building companies in emerging markets is challenging but also rewarding,” Martin explains. “And since all previous experiences worked pretty well, that gave a lot of confidence for Iraq.”

Despite advancements in digital access, however, the country remains deeply rooted in a cash-based economy. Less than a fifth of the population has a bank account, and skepticism towards digital financial systems is widespread. Add to that regulatory challenges and you’re faced with significant barriers to fintech adoption.

Baly tries to solve this through hyperlocalization.

Having a team on the ground and hiring from within the country was essential to increase confidence and deeply understand consumers’ needs — and it still is. Not only do they recruit drivers in person (5-10 times more than competitors), but they also provide them with digital resources, such as SIM cards and mobile wallet tutorials. Baly manages support completely in-house, as well as its geolocation forecasting technology, since tools like Google Maps haven’t meaningfully invested in improving their products in Iraq.

As a result, Baly was the first company in the country to offer upfront pricing, economy car and bike taxi services, growing the size of the entire Iraqi ride-hailing industry by three times in two years. “We knew people were sensitive to cost, so we focused on older, lower-value cars, and launched an economy fleet,” Martin explains. “Overnight, 90% of people preferred that, which then allowed us to lower the price for premium rides as well.”

Although others sought to replicate its success by offering budget options later on, Baly maintains an 80% share of the category, capturing nearly half of Baghdad’s 7.6 million-strong population. The company has been profitable for over a year.

Unlocking Iraq’s billion-dollar opportunity

In September 2024, Martin joined Endeavor’s 100th ISP in Dublin. “I’ve been asked more thorough questions in this process than some of my investors have ever asked me — and the investors are giving me funding!” Martin laughingly said about his selection process at Endeavor. “But I think it’s also a great sign because it shows how much everybody across the process cares, both about building a selective network and giving back to the community.”

The risks of building in a less stable region were clear during deliberation — but so was Martin’s resilience. 

“He’s opened our eyes a lot to the possibilities in Iraq,” said Endeavor Entrepreneur Sergio Furio, founder of Brazilian fintech unicorn Creditas. Jason Borschow, Founder and CEO of Abarca Health and also an Endeavor Entrepreneur, added:

While Iraq was recognized as a high-potential ecosystem, some selection panelists were concerned about challenges in fundraising. One of them even expressed they wouldn’t consider investing in an Iraqi company: “They are next door to a warzone. I just think there’s a lot at risk — if you want to bet on MENA, there are other countries I would choose.”

But another panelist replied: “We are not an investment committee. We are choosing to back Martin in a part of the world where we don’t have many examples. I think it’s quite fitting, actually.”

Although Baly has raised Iraq’s largest ever pre-seed at $10M, Martin understands the debate. “Even to the Middle East, even to Dubai and Saudi investors, Iraq is a new market,” he said. “Maybe people don’t expect as much from it because they’ve never heard the positive sides of it, but we have over ten investors on our cap table who are looking at the upside of us building a $10B company, which I believe we are.”

Endeavor’s support comes from the same belief, recognizing Baly’s leadership in the region and its potential to kickstart the country’s tech ecosystem. As the first Endeavor Entrepreneur to represent Iraq, Martin is confident he won’t be the last.

“The fact that he decided to work in this market, really invest in the local community, build out internship programs, hire from within the country rather than just bringing in people from the outside, told us that he wasn’t just here for short-term gain. He’s really here to make a difference,” said Marc of Endeavor. “I would expect — and I truly mean this — I would expect Iraq to look fundamentally different in the next 10 to 20 years.”