Global Ventures Closes $50m to Invest in the MENA Region

• Dubai-based venture capital (VC) firm Global Ventures, has closed its first fund of $50-million, to invest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
• The fund is backed by Jada, the $1-billion funds generated by Saudi’s Public Investment Fund, UAE’s Mubadala, Abu Dhabi Investment Office, and several other investors.
• The Global Ventures which was founded in 2018 and led by Noor Sweid and Basil Moftah, has invested in 15 companies.

Global Ventures, headquartered in Dubai, has closed the first $50-million fund to invest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

This is according to tech publication Menabytes, which last Friday (10 April) announced the closure of the latest fund in an article.

According to Menabytes, the VC founded in 2018, is led by Noor Sweid and Basil Moftah.

The fund, it said, is backed by Jada, the $1-billion funds generated by Saudi’s Public Investment Fund, UAE’s Mubadala, Abu Dhabi Investment Office, and several other investors.

Global Ventures firm comprises serial founders, ex-investment bankers, strategic management consultants and engineers, who aim to empower young and innovative startups as well as rapidly expanding businesses.

The venture capital firm’s focus and expertise lies within artificial intelligence and machine learning, FinTech, Internet of Things (IoT), Health Tech, Mobility and Sustainable Energy.

Last year saw a lot of achievements for African startups, from the overall investment ($1.3B) to the number of deals (427) to Africa’s first Fintech unicorn (Interswitch) to $210MM in investment for two new payment firms (OPay and PalmPay), records were literally broken across the continent.

Two nations, Nigeria and Kenya, received approximately 82 per cent of the funding. Nigeria, in particular, had been an outstanding with the value of start-up investment rising nearly 5x from 2018.

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According to the report, the Global Ventures was founded in 2018 and is led by Noor Sweid and Basil Moftah, has invested in 15 companies despite its website showing only 10 investments in its portfolio.

These include Egypt’s food ordering startup Elmenus, which revealed it had raised an investment round of $8 million Series-B led by Global Ventures and Egyptian venture capital (VC) firm Algebra Ventures in February.