BECO Capital, a Dubai-based early-stage venture capital (VC) firm is set to increase its investments in the Middle East and North Africa startups after closing its second fund with $100 million.
Name BECO Fund II, the VC said in a statement that the fund is “well in excess” of its initial $80-million target and explained that this was driven by the significantly improved technology investment landscape in the region.
BECO Capital said the fund’s investors include Dubai-based Rimco Investments, the International Financial Corporation (IFC), Bahrain’s Al Waha Venture Capital Fund of Funds, Warba Bank, Watar Partners and KAAF Investments.
BECO Capital primarily invests in early-stage tech startups with founding and engineering teams based in the MENA region.
The firm’s investment strategy is to invest in a diverse range of promising startups at the seed and Series-A stage and then provide follow-on capital to its best-performing companies.
The VC firm, which was founded in 2012, has to date made 22 investments. Its portfolio includes Egyptian startups Vezeeta, Swvl and MaxAB.
BECO Capital said its investments have collectively raised over $1-billion in follow-on capital and created over 9000 jobs in the region.
The firm added that its BECO Fund I has had four exits to date. These include Uber’s acquisition of Dubai-based taxi aggregator Careem in March and Cisco’s acquisition of collaboration platform Voicea in August.
BECO Capital co-founder and managing partner Dany Farha said success stories like Careem have produced dozens of highly skilled and experienced individuals who he said have built businesses to global standards and at immense scale.
“We believe these individuals will go on to have the equivalent impact of PayPal in the region, building the next wave of great companies that will serve regional and global markets,” said Farha.
He also pointed out that of late there have been “substantial leaps” in the technology landscape in MENA.
“Companies like SWVL, Wahed and Kitopi, which we have backed, are now exporting business model innovation from MENA to the rest of the world,” said Farha.
