Dubai's Venture Capital Ecosystem

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Dubai-based startups have attracted investments from not only local investors but also regional ones. Some of the&nbsp;key investors who are based in Dubai are Wamda Capital, Middle East Venture Partners, BECO Capital, Global Ventures and&nbsp;VentureSouq, to name a few.

Those active in corporate rounds and based in Dubai include Emaar, MBC Ventures, EMPG and&nbsp;Kitopi. Among the institutional investors within the UAE, except for Dtec, DFDF and ICD, the remaining are based in Abu Dhabi.

The UAE-Based Main Active Investors

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Investors expect to see the Dubai investor ecosystem mature&nbsp;in the coming months and years with a specific increase in&nbsp;growth-stage funds and sector-specific funds.&nbsp;However, as&nbsp;cautioned by Walid Hanna at MEVP, &ldquo;We have witnessed&nbsp;a decrease in the valuation hype, the market has corrected,&nbsp;there might be a slight &lsquo;funding winter&rsquo; as the ecosystem&nbsp;matures and becomes more competitive.&quot;

The VC markets in MENA have&nbsp;historically been less liquid than the VC&nbsp;markets in the U.S. or Europe, though&nbsp;the region has begun to produce some&nbsp;major exits in recent years. There has&nbsp;been a clear increase in the number of&nbsp;exits in both numbers of transactions&nbsp;and valuation.

Almost all the VCs we spoke to said&nbsp;one of their biggest concerns was&nbsp;exit options and how they could be&nbsp;improved for local startups. The main&nbsp;exit options exercised by Dubai-based&nbsp;startups to date have been through&nbsp;M&amp;A. Saudi and Egypt-based startups&nbsp;have begun IPOs in secondary public&nbsp;markets, providing another viable exit&nbsp;opportunity.

These Are the Top 15 Exits in the Middle East and North Africa Market

Top 15 Exits in MENA

While Dubai has started receiving later-stage funding, those are still in single digits. What&rsquo;s encouraging is that growth stage&nbsp;funding, Series A and Series B, has consistently increased through the years, peaking in 2021 at 28 transactions.

Early stage and&nbsp;growth cheques have also been up with average funding increasing at each stage of funding through the years.

UAE Main Active Investors

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