Middle East e-commerce website MarkaVIP raised $5 million

MarkaVIP, a private sales club and e-commerce operation in the Middle East, just announced the completion of $5 million Series A funding led by Silicon Valley venture firm Lumia Capital with significant participation from New York City-based Invus Financial Advisors.

MarkaVIP was established in November 2010 and employs 120 people across six offices in Beirut, Dubai, Amman, Istanbul, Antwerp and San Francisco. The site has attracted 700,000 registered users to date, with up to 5,000 more joining per day.

This is one of the biggest announced investments in an e-commerce/online operation from the Middle East. Among other major investments from last year we had Dice Holdings acquisition of Dubai-based job site WorldWideWorker for $9 million and Naspers stake in Dubai-based classified website Dubizzle

More details about MarkaVIP investment follows: