UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: SHUAA Capital psc (DFM: SHUAA) has launched SHUAA Venture Partners, a USD 250 million Shari’ah fund, focused on enterprise debt investments.
Commenting on the launch of the fund, Natasha Hannoun, Head of Debt at SHUAA Capital said: “SHUAA Venture Partners will present alternative capital options to excessive growth companies throughout the GCC. We aim to support the expansion of businesses, create jobs, lead additional developments in innovation and technology, support financial diversification and information founders towards realizing their vision. Our investors have the chance to diversify right into a brand new asset class in technology, with a shorter funding horizon, frequent distributions and attractive monetary returns”.
The fund is the largest enterprise debt fund within the GCC and has been established to support the expansion of regional technology and technology-enabled leaders that are seeking alternative sources of funding with out considerably diluting their shareholding.
The technique was developed sharing the imaginative and prescient of the GCC’s regional goals of financial diversification and growth of the brand new economy.
Investments in growth companies all through the GCC have been dominated by early stage transactions and investors, with few able to support companies all through their growth cycle.
As a result, a number of growth-stage companies have restricted entry to bigger swimming pools of capital and non-equity monetary solutions; a hole which must be filled for new ventures to succeed.
The GCC has seen a staggering year on year increase of 112% in enterprise capital transactions, with total investments of over USD 1.7 billion throughout 281 deals, the bulk of which have been early-stage investments; Angel, Seed, and Series A (80% of deal count and 45% of deal value). Venture debt regionally has elevated 4.2x from 2020, with a complete of USD 257 million deployed into 14 investments, indicating a transparent demand for alternative funding sources.
SHUAA is the main debt franchise within the region, with USD 545 million deployed in private debt transactions and USD three billion structured throughout a number of sectors over the final eleven years together with technology.
Most recently, the USD 50 million funding in Pure Harvest and the PIPE funding for Anghami, which became the primary Arab tech firm to list on NASDAQ in New York, final month.
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