logo
Dubai Future District Fund Reports $1.65 Billion in Capital Commitments and Backs 190 Startups in 2024

Dubai Future District Fund Reports $1.65 Billion in Capital Commitments and Backs 190 Startups in 2024

Hi Dubai2 days ago

The Dubai Future District Fund (DFDF) marked a year of strong strategic growth in 2024, securing over US$1.65 billion in capital commitments and supporting more than 190 portfolio companies through direct investments and Fund of Funds initiatives.
The update was revealed during DFDF's Annual General Meeting, where the Board of Directors detailed the Fund's progress in advancing its mandate. Anchored by the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and the Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), the Fund plays a key role in aligning with the Dubai Economic Agenda (D33) by fueling innovation and strengthening the venture capital ecosystem.
Chairman of the DFDF Board and CEO of DFF, Khalfan Belhoul, said the Fund's achievements underline its role in shaping Dubai's digital economy and investing in future technologies across key sectors. Arif Amiri, DFDF Board Member and CEO of DIFC Authority, emphasized the importance of global collaboration in positioning Dubai as a hub for innovation.
In addition to financial backing, DFDF spotlighted its value creation efforts in 2024 through strategic case studies, developed in partnership with institutions across various sectors. These efforts highlight the Fund's role as a bridge between public and private sectors, encouraging scalable innovation.
Looking ahead, and in line with the UAE's declaration of 2025 as the Year of the Community, DFDF is set to deepen its focus on fostering inclusive innovation networks. The Fund reaffirmed its commitment to building stronger connections between startups, investors, regulators, and global markets.
The Fund's continued momentum reinforces Dubai's growing reputation as a global destination for tech talent and venture investment.
News Source: Emirates News Agency

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

MENA Startups Raise $289M in May as Egypt Leads Recovery
MENA Startups Raise $289M in May as Egypt Leads Recovery

Fintech News ME

time2 hours ago

  • Fintech News ME

MENA Startups Raise $289M in May as Egypt Leads Recovery

The startup ecosystem in MENA experienced renewed momentum in May 2025, securing a total of US$289 million across 44 deals. This reflects a 25% increase compared to April and a modest 2% rise year-on-year. Debt financing accounted for only 9% of the total investment, with the bulk of capital directed towards equity deals. Egypt regained its position as the region's leading recipient of funding, largely thanks to Nawy 's notable US$75 million round. According to Wamda, seven other Egyptian startups collectively raised US$50 million, marking activity levels not seen since July of the previous year. The UAE followed with US$86.7 million raised across 14 deals, while Saudi Arabia trailed closely behind with US$69 million from 15 deals. Meanwhile, Kuwait made a rare appearance on the investment radar, with two startups securing a combined US$6 million, positioning the often-overlooked GCC nation in fourth place. AI remained a hot topic in the Gulf, especially following a high-profile visit by US President Trump and prominent Silicon Valley AI executives. The diplomatic event prompted both Saudi Arabia and the UAE to announce major plans to enhance their local AI ecosystems. However, despite the political attention and media excitement, investment in AI startups fell short of expectations. The sector drew only US$25 million across two deals, underscoring the disconnect between the narrative and actual funding activity. Fintech continued to lead in sectoral funding, attracting US$86.5 million through 14 rounds. Proptech followed closely, buoyed by Nawy's large raise, while mediatech companies brought in a total of US$32 million from two deals. Construction technology also made a notable contribution, with WakeCap raising US$28 million. There was a marked absence of late-stage funding activity in May. Just one pre-Series C round was recorded, amounting to US$12 million. Early-stage investments dominated, accounting for US$161 million of the total capital raised. Investor preference continued to lean towards business-to-business (B2B) models. B2B startups attracted US$157 million across 29 deals, while hybrid B2B/B2C companies brought in US$79 million. In contrast, business-to-consumer (B2C) startups received significantly less attention, with nine companies raising a combined US$53 million. The gender gap in startup funding remained pronounced. Startups founded exclusively by men secured 82% of the total capital. Female-founded ventures garnered just 7%, while teams comprising both male and female founders attracted nearly 11%.

Saudi Digital Bank D360 Eyes Series A in 2025, Targets Global Investors
Saudi Digital Bank D360 Eyes Series A in 2025, Targets Global Investors

Fintech News ME

time6 hours ago

  • Fintech News ME

Saudi Digital Bank D360 Eyes Series A in 2025, Targets Global Investors

Saudi Arabia's digital bank D360, backed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), is in preliminary discussions with potential global investors as it prepares for a Series A funding round slated for the second half of 2025. The Shariah-compliant bank, which began operations in December, aims to complete the fundraising in the first quarter of 2026, according to Chief Executive Officer Eze Szafir in an interview with Bloomberg. This follows D360's successful raising of approximately US$500 million from existing shareholders, including the PIF and Derayah Financial Co. Szafir did not specify the size of the upcoming round but said the funds would support efforts to expand services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in line with Saudi Arabia's economic diversification objectives under Vision 2030. 'We're looking for new investors in the international landscape, most probably from Europe or the US, with the same quality we have here with the PIF and Derayah,' Szafir told Bloomberg. The bank also plans to launch comprehensive lending services for individuals and SMEs later this year. To prepare for the funding round, D360 has appointed former JPMorgan Chase & Co. banker Mohammed Nazer as Chief Financial Officer to oversee the process. Nazer said the bank expects to appoint advisers to manage the Series A round by the end of July. D360 is among the first institutions to receive a digital banking licence in Saudi Arabia and currently serves over 1 million users. It is targeting 4 million account holders ahead of a potential public listing within the next four years. By leveraging data-driven strategies and modern technologies, the bank aims to support the development of Saudi Arabia's digital financial infrastructure in alignment with Vision 2030. The move comes as the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA), continues to update regulatory frameworks to facilitate digital transformation in the financial sector. SAMA has prioritised innovation and financial inclusion by licensing new digital banking players as part of efforts to modernise the Kingdom's banking system and bolster financial resilience. This regulatory push has contributed to electronic payments accounting for 79% of all retail transactions in Saudi Arabia in 2024, up from 70% in 2023, according to SAMA. The central bank also reported that non-cash retail transactions totalled 12.6 billion in 2024, compared with 10.8 billion the year before, reflecting ongoing growth and adoption of digital payments nationwide.

Agentic AI Ticks 3 Architectural Boxes for Success
Agentic AI Ticks 3 Architectural Boxes for Success

TECHx

time16 hours ago

  • TECHx

Agentic AI Ticks 3 Architectural Boxes for Success

Home » Expert opinion » 3 Architectural Boxes to Tick for Agentic AI Success Agentic AI is set to outpace GenAI in growth. Learn the 3 architectural essentials every organization must adopt to stay ahead of the AI curve. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), AI is now an everyday tool. We use it as individuals, and we use it as professionals. Among the businesses that use it, the more successful implementers follow a Universal AI adoption path that changes the corporate culture from within and infuses the workforce with AI literacy. Stemming from this enthusiasm, analysts foresee AI in the UAE as a multibillion-dollar segment, with generative AI (GenAI) alone taking about US$383 million in 2025 and more than US$2.5 billion in 2031, a CAGR of nearly 37%. But AI itself has changed. As businesses have come to understand the limitations of GenAI and the importance of taking an operationally centric approach to tool procurement, decision makers have begun to explore the idea of having AI agents with modular autonomy take over from other forms of AI. The UAE's agentic AI market garnered revenues of around US$34 million in 2024. By 2030 it is expected to be worth more than 10 times this figure, some US$352 million. At a CAGR of almost 48%, agentic AI, in the UAE at least, will be adopted at a faster rate than GenAI. As with GenAI, or any AI, or indeed any technology, procurement of agentic AI is no guarantee of success. We must be diligent about how we build our architecture, the ideal example of which, I believe, has three basic characteristics. 1. Flexible AI waits for nobody. At its current speed of evolution, modern business IT environments find it difficult to keep pace. To stand a chance, CIOs must look at how easy or difficult it is to maintain their tech stacks. If a new version of the GPT core model arrives on the market, will it be easy to adopt, or will it require weeks of overtime work from the DevOps team and others? To streamline adoption, enterprises should ensure that the underlying framework, in which AI agents will operate, is flexible enough to support plug-and-play models. Modular architecture is crucial to the success of almost any modern technology; but if the regularity of recent versions of GPT is anything to go by, then the journey organizations will take with agentic AI is likely to be marked by particularly frequent upgrades. Architectures should be crafted around four layers: the generative model layer, the feedback layer (which implements learning loops across multiple models), the deployment layer, and the monitoring layer. 2. Matches models to jobs To apply the FOMO principle to AI procurement is to invite disaster. The individual or team that oversees the organization's Universal AI journey should be laser-focused on business issues first and AI only as the means to overcome challenges. Organizations should be fully cognizant of what issues are being addressed by AI. Is it an exercise in optimization? Is it the addition of a completely new business capability or a new product or a new service? Whatever is being added, it should come with a net-positive value. The AI procurement team should work with targeted beneficiaries to ensure everyone knows how to measure success and what constitutes a risk. For example, giving GenAI-powered virtual assistants to sales or customer-service employees may lift their productivity, conversion rates, and even profitability ratings. But these benefits may be neutralized if employees share sensitive data with a cloud-native model. Thankfully, formal metrics like answer correctness and B-score allow analysis of models for their suitability in a use case. 'LLM as judge', where AI models are used to monitor the effectiveness of other AI models is also viable. 3. Backed by strong governance The AI journey is fraught with risk. Today, we see many organizations prioritizing speed over security, and we see AI budget growth outpacing that of IT budgets. The introduction of AI must align with the compliance obligations and financial limitations of the enterprise. The only way to achieve this is through appropriate governance. Governance has a broad remit. On the security side, it can mandate content-filtering to ensure customers are never exposed to output that would be damaging to the organization's brand. On the financial side, it can prescribe dashboards that monitor costs and categorize them by project and user. So critical is governance to AI success that some modern AI platforms include it as part of the suite, signaling that solutions vendors now consider it as important as the building of ML models. Even when AI was in its infancy, some industry leaders were calling for 'responsible AI' that cracked open the black box and presented models' innermost workings for scrutiny. Guardrails and trust go hand in hand. Security builds trust with customers. Cost-effectiveness builds trust with the C-suite. The path to Universal AI We can have the AI future we want, but only if we apply due diligence. By ensuring we take the right steps towards security and cost-effectiveness we can introduce agentic AI in ways that produce the right results. It may be the talk of the town right now, but we must adopt agentic AI strategically if we are to prosper from its merits. By Sid Bhatia, Area VP & General Manager – Middle East, Turkey & Africa, Dataiku

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store