New $60m venture capital firm +VC launched

Sharif El Badawi and Hasan Haider. - Supplied photo

Plus Venture Capital (+VC) announced the launch of its operations and its $60 million debut fund focused on investing in early-stage tech startups in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region and its diaspora.

The firm's leadership, led by ex-Google executive Sharif El Badawi and investment veteran Hasan Haider, is taking an innovative approach to supporting early-stage companies - leveraging more than 35 years of combined investing and operating experience.

Haider said: "We are excited to launch +VC with a differentiated investment thesis for the region. The aim of the firm is to invest in a broadly diversified portfolio of seed stage startups, targeting 120 investments over the next 3 years. Our 5 year legacy of investing in Mena and global startups has helped us build deep personal networks for exceptional deal flow. Our thesis is designed to empower startups in the rapidly growing Mena economy. We intend to leverage our expertise and knowledge to positively impact the growth of the region's burgeoning startup ecosystem."

The Mena region is fast emerging as a key startup ecosystem, having seen several recent exits including the $3 billion  acquisition of Careem by Uber in 2019 and the acquisition of Souq by Amazon in 2017. The region has a positive macro story, with a largely young, highly connected market of over 400m people with a similar culture and language. Although the market is still nascent, it is growing rapidly with funding and exits increasing year over year, indicating the tremendous opportunity for early investment that +VC is positioned to capitalise on.

"With our team having worked and invested in many startups over the years, we can provide the right level of support to the founders that we invest in. Investment is just the first step, beyond that our founders can expect deep support from experienced practitioners from around the world and access to a unique network of operators, mentors and investors. We are building a thriving community of startups to support each other and increase the adoption of international standards and best practices. We look forward to partnering with extraordinary and innovative entrepreneurs to help build successful businesses and contribute to a vibrant regional economy," El Badawi added.

"While we're open to investing across sectors, as long as technology is the product or means of distribution, in the near future we are keen on finding teams that have identified opportunities that solve the current needs and are expected to grow significantly, mainly fintech, healthtech and edutech."  

El Badawi shares that the newly launched fund's focus is on supporting homegrown talent in the region, which they define as Arabic speaking Mena countries.
"All funds have to define a stage, sector and geographic focus when they present the fund to limited partners (LPs), and each limited partner also has their specific geographic interests. It's sometimes challenging trying to find LPs that are open to the whole Arabic speaking MENA region that we cover, as some investors are country-specific (SWFs, FoFs) and some only focus on developing countries in the Levant and North Africa (foreign direct investment and development funds). Our goal is to show the value of the region as whole and partner with a mix of institutional and private capital sources."
- sandhya@khaleejtimes.com