Eps 31: Arab world startups
— The too lazy to register an account podcast
The World Economic Forum and the Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) have partnered and selected 100 Arab start-ups shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution in 2019.
The Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) is proud to partner with the World Economic Forum on the search for the 100 Arab start-ups shaping the future.
HalalaH aims at providing meaningful banking services to unbanked and underbanked individuals and micro, small and medium-sized businesses in Saudi Arabia.
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Vickie Pearson
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Entrepreneurship is booming in the Middle East and North Africa: startups from the region raised an astonishing $900 million in 2016, 31% more than in 2017. Foreign investment has remained stable, while fintech has adopted e-commerce as the main driver of growth in both the private and public sectors in Saudi Arabia. The number of companies selected twice for the 100 Arab start-ups initiative reached a new record of 31 in 2017 compared to the previous year, and twice as many companies were selected as in previous years, the initiative said.
To highlight MENA's booming start-up ecosystem, the Middle East and North Africa Economic Development Council (MEEDC) released its report last week on "Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution." This is according to a new report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and MIT Media Lab (MITM), published on the sidelines of the annual World Startup Summit, which will take place in Jordan from 6-7 April 2019.
The startups were selected from nearly 400 applicants and represent a wide range of sectors including healthcare, education, healthcare, energy, finance, technology, media and entertainment. The startups represent sectors such as education and health, financial services, transport and logistics, health and technology.
Dubai - Souq.com, founded in 2005 by former FIFA world footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, claims to have more than 30 million visitors a month. The Persian Gulf has long been home to the world's leading tech startups, many of which have gained access to Silicon Valley's most prestigious incubators and accelerators. But more and more people from the Gulf are joining in, "said the founder of Startup Dubai, a startup accelerator that teamed up with Google in April to open a technology center to support new online and mobile businesses.
In the past two years, 58 entrepreneurs, all from the Gulf states, have participated in AstroLabs "start-up training program, he said.
As the MIT Enterprise Forum Pan-Arab continues its efforts to revitalize the entrepreneurial ecosystem, Fadel commented, "This shows how entrepreneurs in the region will lead the way to change. This year, for the first time, the Impact Report on the success of the Arab World Entrepreneurship Competition, a global competition for start-ups, was published. The competition contributed $415 million to the Arab world's GDP, changed the mindset of thousands of Arabs, and helped create 14,000 jobs in the region.
Since its launch in 2005, the Pan-Arab MIT Enterprise Forum has helped change the attitudes of thousands of Arabs toward entrepreneurship and innovation, "said Youssef Al-Khatib, executive director of the Arab World Entrepreneurship Competition and co-founder of the MIT Entrepreneurial Center.
According to Dubai - based on Magnitt, a crunchbase - the volume of transactions increased by 80 percent (3 percent) to 366 transactions in 2018, such as data startup that provides venture capital information to startups in the Arab world (1) and 1.5 times faster than the global average (2). Hub71 is a platform for technology companies, startups and investors seeking to benefit from the fast-growing economies of the Middle East and North Africa. By creating the optimal environment to help startups and entrepreneurs develop, scale, and build transformative businesses, Hub 71 is the first and only global hub for business competition in the Arab World, the Pan-Arab Business Forum, and the MIT Enterprise Forum.
According to Magnitt, total capital invested in the region reached an estimated $793 million in 2018, more than 80 percent of which went to seed and early-stage startups. In particular, I can think of two startups that are also a significant part of the financing for MENA startups (see chart above), such as the $1.2 billion provided by Y Combinator for the first half of 2018.
ArabNet is a hot place right now to meet other techies and investors in the Middle East, "says an American working for a Qatar-based technology firm. Dubai - Start-up Careem has attracted attention after it was reported that the company is in takeover talks with its US counterpart Uber.
Egypt - Even a country whose economy has reached a crater point since last year's revolution is fertile ground for venture capital firms, a tech investor says, looking at the bigger picture. A Cairo-based private equity firm, Sawari Ventures, has agreed to invest $1.5 million in a start-up incubator in Cairo, Egypt's second-largest city. In order to make it easier for young entrepreneurs to set up technology companies in Egypt, the company has set up the tech incubators Flat6Labs.
The Tunisian government has adopted 20 measures, laws and legal frameworks to support the establishment, development and internationalisation of Tunisian startups.
A similar initiative in Egypt, the Startups Manifesto, is gaining traction. The leader of RiseUp, CEO Abdelhameed Shara, wrote: "The ultimate goal is to enable Egypt to have a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem. It recently partnered with a number of Abu Dhabi-based startups operating in the country to support the development of Arabic-speaking children.