Timeline of the Evolution of Dubai’s Digital Economy

Dubai has been a significant contributor to the country’s digital economy since the early 2000’s. In fact, Dubai’s Internet City was founded in 1999, and is now home to the regional headquarters of the first wave of global tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and Facebook. It was also the 2000’s when many of the first movers and shakers of Dubai’s digital economy like e-commerce player Souq.com (est. 2005, acquired by Amazon), e-classifieds player Dubizzle.com (est. 2005, acquired by Naspers, now under EMPG), and online real-estate marketplaces like PropertyFinder (est. 2005) and Bayut.com (est. 2008, now under EMPG) were all born at this time.

The second generation of major Dubai growth stories and exits in the 2010’s included ride-hailing app Careem (est. 2012, acquired by Uber for $3.1 billion), children’s e-commerce player MumzWorld (est. 2011, acquired 2021), grocery-on-demand app Instashop (est. 2015, acquired by DeliveryHero), and cloud-kitchen player Kitopi (est. 2018, raised $804 million, unicorn valuation).

And it is exactly this talent and this capital that Dubai is seeking to continue feeding it’s digital economy ecosystem. The initial Dubai-based start-up successes are now seeding the ecosystem with a strong pool of seasoned talent that are now launching their own venture capital funds or start-ups. Millionaires relocating to Dubai are investing in or funding and launching their own digital economy companies in the market.