As per The Magnitt, it stated out that Food and Beverage, FinTech as well as E-Commerce Start-Ups lured a recorded investment from the Venture Capital Firms.
Amidst the rising Pandemic wave and related concerns, there is a lot positive news from MENA forefront as the overall cumulative funding secured out by the Start-Ups had been bolstered by 64 percent during the initial half of the year, with the recovery mode spruced up by far for all economies in MENA territory. The investors also have now allocated more currency for all capable Start-Ups.
As per the latest report from Magnitt, stated out that; the MENA funding for the Start-Ups within the period touched $1.2Billion, with in excess of $1.09bn being achieved within the whole the preceding year.
The report also stated out that; “With $1.2bn in investment, VC [venture capital] funding reached record quarterly, half-yearly and yearly levels in Mena in the first six months of 2021, showing signs of a strong recovery from 2020.”
Major funding rounds in the initial six months of the year encompassed $415m for Dubai’s cloud kitchen concern Kitopi, $30.5m for Saudi Arabia’s e-commerce platform Sary and $30m for Egypt-based freight start-up Trella.
Digital payments start-up Paymob also secured $15m in new funding to expand its operations across the region as the coronavirus pandemic prompts a surge in cashless transactions.
The Chief Executive as well as Founder of Magnitt, Philip Bahoshy, stated out that; “In terms of capital, food and beverage, FinTech and e-commerce are the industries that saw the most capital invested.”
Mr. Bahoshy, stated out that; “This year has seen more later-stage investments in the first half than in any previous year.”
However, the number of deals plummeted by 20 percent to 254 as angel investors switched funds towards more conventional asset classes like that of the stock markets and property.
SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund 2 powered out the funding round for Kitopi, which also fascinated Chimera, Abu Dhabi’s DisruptAD, US-based B Riley, Turkey’s Dogus Group, Next Play Capital and Nordstar, the cloud kitchen business stated preceding this month. The deal is the initial investment by Vision Fund 2 in a UAE-registered firm.
VentureSouq, which is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund via their Jada Fund of Funds, powered the latest funding round for Sary along with Riyadh’s STV and a Silicon Valley fund known as Rocketship.vc.
The funding round for Trella was powered out via Maersk Growth and Raed Ventures.
He also added out that; “In fact, 23 per cent of all of the deals that took place were greater than $10m, which is higher than any previous year on record. Investors coming back from the pandemic increased their risk appetite and their investments have been towards the later stage, more mature investments rather than earlier-stage start-ups.”
Although the food & beverage segment took the major share of funds invested, FinTech firms were involved in the core deals, according to the report.
As per the report, UAE is the Arab League’s-2nd core economy, powered by the way in terms of deal numbers, with their Start-Ups getting positioned 61 percent of all the MENA investments.
All the topmost three MENA Centres-the UAE, Egypt as well as the Saudi Arabia- amassed 71 percent of overall capital invested within the particular period, the data depicted.
The UAE settled out 65 deals in the initial half of the year, accounting for 26 percent of all dealings in the Mena territory. Egypt and Saudi Arabia were graded second and third with 24 percent and 21 percent of dealings, respectively.
Mr Bahoshy assumes overall funding for start-ups to surpass $2bn by the cease of 2021 as the economies remain to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“If accelerator programmes and early-stage investment returns in the second half of the year, we will also see more investment deals in the region than any previous year,” he said. “I also anticipate that we will see more acquisitions and consolidation through mergers and acquisitions as the market looks to strengthen coming out of the pandemic.”
