From Silicon Valley to Abu Dhabi and Beyond
By Mahmoud Adi, Founding Partner, Shorooq Partners
Our story begins in 2015 when two friends and colleagues in the Silicon Valley saw a fresh opportunity in the Middle East. A year later, Shane and I moved to Abu Dhabi and together co-founded Shorooq Partners, the first Emirati-founded seed and early-stage venture capital fund. Now in 2022, almost six years later , we have expanded beyond our hometown into the wider MENA and Pakistan (MENAP) region, helping startups move on to the next stage of development with our value-add, venture debt funds and more.
Shorooq Partners has invested in over fifty (50+) startups and currently operates offices in six different countries – UAE (Abu Dhabi and Dubai), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and Pakistan. As we continue to recruit talent for our newest office in Pakistan, we believe our local footprint and presence in a relatively untapped market will enable us to work closely with entrepreneurs and founders with ingenious aspirations and talents.
Our mission at Shorooq Partners is to create tangible value by being founders’ partners, company builders and value investors. Now more than ever, we believe there is an enormous startup opportunity here in MENAP. We will continue to achieve growth through market and office expansion in this region, leveraging our unique, integrated approach to expanding geographic footprint to provide founders with tangible local expertise in the relevant markets, as well as increasing our own odds of better identifying promising startups primarily at the pre-seed & seed stages, when founders need us the most.
COMMITMENT TO MENAP
Amidst the rise of working from home and virtual meetings, Shorooq Partners has been keen on opening new offices in different regions primarily because we want to encounter untapped sourcing opportunities, help our founders kick off businesses successfully and expand physically beyond their origins to our core geographies where we have accumulated the right expertise and insights to share.
Each country has its unique local culture, history and way of doing business, and one of the advantages of our expansion across MENAP is the familiarity with local business permit laws, regulations and ordinances. Shorooq Partners’ experience with building local entities across multiple locations provides a unique benefit that our portfolio companies can take advantage of, ensuring that correct business procedures and employment regulations are in place from the get-go. Needless to say, entering into new markets, especially a nascent one like Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Pakistan, presents both opportunities and challenges, and Shorooq Partners strives to meet the founders needs in these stages and areas of expansion. It is our priority to help portfolio companies develop their businesses in their respective and new markets, and we are confident in our ability to support them.
Specialized service is difficult to find, but our emphasis on utilizing and emboldening local presence has helped us better understand founders’ specific needs, expectations, and real local problems. For example, Aumet, the largest B2B healthcare marketplace in Jordan now headquartered in Saudi Arabia, demonstrates how we helped expand its reach from Jordan to UAE, Saudi Arabia, after leading Pre-Series A round last year. Leveraging our M&A experience, we also advised Aumet acquire an Egypt-based healthcare supply chain solutions startup Platform One to become fully active across MENA with more than 5,000 active pharmacies on its platform. Using our multi-faceted approach and a wide network of individuals, Aumet was able to hire business-savvy employees with unique skill sets and deep understanding of the local customs for its Saudi operations.
Likewise, we helped a Dubai-based immersive virtual mobile app company 360VUZ establish their physical presence in Saudi by sharing a part of our office - “Shorooq Space” - in Riyadh before setting up their own, while receiving commercial registration. In less than two years’ time, 360VUZ has successfully expanded into more cities in Asia and the US (notably Hollywood, yes you heard it right), and we feel privileged to have joined them in their exciting journey through global expansion.
Where talent recruitment and team building remain a top priority, we have better access to delivering those talents in specific regions because we have a wider physical presence. Spurred by our expansion, we understand better than anyone that the MENAP’s startup economy is just beginning to thrive, ripe with opportunities and innovative founders determined to shape the future. We have had the privilege of seeing some of these journeys unfold over the last few years, and we look forward to discovering many more going forward.
COMMITMENT TO FOUNDERS
Shorooq Partners seeks to be the most active and founder-centric venture capital firm in the MENAP region, and we will show commitment to being founders’ companions and be on the ground for them to deliver the value across. We also believe that investing in a physical office space in the region as a strategy will resonate with the founders we encounter. That capex is spent where and when it is necessary for growth. This commitment to expand regionally is a testament to our commitment to forging connections with founders on a wider and sincere level, tapping into other markets, and learning from top-tier talents and investors in the industry.
In the wake of rising VC activities in MENAP, is there a better shortcut to spotting an untapped investment opportunity besides being in close proximity to one? Believing that there is no better way to understand the culture and develop a sense of community within a market than to live in one, our big decision to relocate from Silicon Valley to Abu Dhabi was indeed a good one that has delivered our growth hitherto.
After all, there are two simple and undisputed ways of achieving growth for any business – growing in an existing market or expanding into a new market. If you’re looking for a partner to undertake the epic journey of company building in the region, get in touch with us. We cannot wait to hear your vision and grow with you. Reach out to us at shorooq.com.
