Abu Dhabi Investment Office launches new $145.6M VC fund

A new $145.6 million Ghadan Ventures Fund has been launched by the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO), to boost the startup ecosystem in the capital.

In a bid to attract startups and accelerate the ecosystem, this is just one of the many funds that have been set up recently. Seeing that 2018 was a good year for startups and investors alike, there was a 31% increase in total funding and 13% increase in deals compared to 2017, according to Mahmoud Adi, head of Hub71. 19 of the world’s 100 most promising startups, almost a fifth, are in the UAE (World Economic Forum, May 2019).

The new Ghadan Ventures Fund offers two main programmes — start-up matching fund and new managers fund — to increase the availability of capital to Abu Dhabi based startups and stimulate entrepreneurship. For the former, ADIO will match a start-up’s lead VC investment up to AED 10 million for seed rounds and AED 50 million for Series A. As for the latter, the Fund will boost the number of VC funds that operate in the emirate.

Read more about this latest fund here.