US VC Fund Village Capital Looks To Invest In UAE Tech Start-ups

Village Capital, the US-based venture capital firm, is looking to fund UAE start-ups through its MetLife Foundation Impact Fund, a senior executive of the organisation has revealed.

The four UAE start-ups - Buyback Bazaar Technology, Datacultr Fintech Limited, Distichain and HubPay - are expected to receive funding in the region of $500,000 to $2 million.

The start-ups are part of the 12 early-stage fintech ventures selected by Village Capital, in collaboration with Metlife Foundation and PayPal, for its latest edition of the start-up accelerator programme in the MENA region.

“Besides being considered for investment from the MetLife fund, the four UAE start-up ventures will also be funded from the $150,000 grant capital as part of our Finance Forward MENA program,” Alicia Sornson, manager of Programs & Partnerships in MENA at Village Capital, told Arabian Business.

She said one of the greatest challenges start-ups are facing now is difficulty in accessing capital amid economic uncertainty and the VC fund has recently launched a grand coalition of entrepreneurs to tackle this problem.

“We look to support high-impact companies for acceleration and investment. We are also keen to support startup ecosystems that are less resourced than the major hubs such as Dubai, as also aiming to deepen our support of female-led ventures in the region,” Sornson said.

Buyback Bazaar Technology is an online portal that facilitates emergency access to cash in exchange for personal items, while Datacultr Fintech Limited is a platform that allows lending institutions to use smartphones as collateral for loans to new-to-credit customers and HubPay is a digital wallet for the remittance community.

Distichain is an e-commerce and e-procurement platform that facilitates open trade between companies in partnership with banks.

Sornson said while Covid-19 has impacted the start-up segment tangibly, the pandemic has also highlighted gaps in economies and services worldwide, prompting entrepreneurs to continue innovating and creating new and exciting ventures.

“Covid-19 has highlighted pain points in the region (MENA) that we (and others) were already working on, such as support to small businesses, the inclusion of vulnerable populations in formal financial services and digital payments.

“However, it has also increased the need for impact investors such as Village Capital to look towards areas such as health, education and the future of work,” Sornson told Arabian Business.

She revealed there are companies such as Markit in Lebanon working to help small grocers digitise their inventory and Bilforon in Jordan helping women at home to earn a livelihood through delivering home-cooking in this year's Finance Forward MENA cohort.

“These look quite different to financial health start-ups in a pre-Covid-19 world.”

According to the latest report by Village Capital, there is a $260 billion lending gap in MENA, which opens up great opportunities for start-up founders to decipher, solve and generate positive impact for vulnerable populations in the region.