Iran's Start-Up Spring

Vivienne Walt, Fortune
The number of Iranian startups has rocketed, from almost none at the beginning of this decade to at least 400 in Tehran alone, according to TechRasa, a local equivalent of TechCrunch, which tracks the sector. These startups occupy a tiny portion—less than 1% of GDP, by some estimates—of Iran’s oil-dominated economy. But their impact is potentially huge. If they succeed, they could foster a different vision of what the country could be, and help reverse years of brain drain, in which millions of bright Iranian youth have left, many for the U.S.