Riyadh and Dubai have become the top destinations for start-ups in the Mena region, according to a report by UK-based communications platform Sortlist.
They were ranked first and second respectively among 13 Mena cities.
Kuwait, Amman, Istanbul, Manama, Casablanca, Cairo, Baghdad and Beirut also featured in the top 10.
The Saudi government has been vigorously involved in improving the innovation-friendly business climate, activating legal framework in key sectors like fintech.
Riyadh is also saturated with e-commerce platforms. For instance, Sary, founded in 2018, is a start-up that connects micro and small businesses (grocery stores and F&B businesses) with wholesalers and FMCGs. It raised $30.5 million in a Series B round led by VentureSouq in May, and was ranked first on LinkedIn’s annual list of top SMEs in 2021.
Another key player is Tamara, a buy-now-pay-later platform operating in Saudi Arabia and the UAE that allows customers to defer and split payments into three equal installments free of charge and interest-free. This August, Tamara secured $100 million in a Series B funding round to bolster its expansion across the GCC region.
Dubai stands out as the optimal location for hybrid working and collaborating with international clients and employees. The ‘Global Hybrid Work’ study by Cisco, a multinational technology conglomerate corporation, revealed that 90 per cent of Dubai-based employees are working remotely, or at least have adopted a hybrid working model.
In April, the Dubai Chamber of Commerce announced the addition of 3,056 new member companies, bringing the chamber’s total membership to 300,000 – the largest number in the world.
Additionally, Dubai is an affluent market with no corporate tax, low value-added tax, high purchase power and a prosperous luxury segment. In April, Dubai Future Foundation launched an initiative to assist the growth of tech startups, scale-ups, SMEs and entrepreneurs from around the world to promote luxury retail.
The report evaluated cities drawing on several criteria, such as success rates, average office rental costs, electricity prices, population with the most qualifications and broadband speed.
According to Sortlist’s data, start-ups in Mena raised $323.7 million across 66 deals in June.
