Invest In The Founder, Not The Company

In an exclusive interview, regional venture capitalist Noor Sweid outlines how the startup ecosystem has coped with the pandemic and reveals her plans for the future

- Aarti Nagraj

With 2020 being defined by the Covid-19 pandemic, the impact of the virus on the regional startup sector has been mixed. On one hand, the number of investment deals for MENA-based startups were down 8 per cent year-on-year in the first half of the year (with March and April seeing the biggest drops of 66 per cent and 35 per cent respectively), according to a report by startup data platform Magnitt.

On the other hand, there was a 35 per cent increase in total funding in H1 2020, with MENA-based startups raising $659m between January to June – standing at 95 per cent of the full-year 2019 funding. This was largely attributed to a few startups raising sizable funding rounds, such as Kitopi ($60m) and Vezeeta ($40m), before the Covid-19 outbreak, as well as high-profile funding rounds during the pandemic, such as EMPG ($150m) and Jahez ($36.5m), the report stated.

On a ground level, in reality, the pandemic has been the first-ever crisis experience for many startups in the region. “Covid forced a lot of startups to pivot and kind of really think about being sustainable – not that startups don’t want to be sustainable – but that became a priority. The other thing that it’s done for startups is made them more creative in a way and more focused,” explains Noor Sweid, partner and founder of Dubai-based venture capital firm Global Ventures.