Law outlines procedures for expropriation, calculating compensation, and appeal
The law also creates an ‘Expropriation Committee’ to oversee all matters related to expropriation of property. The chairman of the Dubai Ruler’s Court will issue a decision on the formation of the committee, its members, decision-making processes and expropriation procedures.
Dubai: A new law regulating procedures for expropriating property for public use in Dubai has been issued.
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, in his capacity as the Ruler of Dubai, issued Law No. 2 of 2022 on the expropriation of property for public use in the emirate.
The law aims to ensure that the rights of owners of expropriated property are protected and that they are afforded full and fair compensation as per a clear set of rules outlined by it.
According to Ashu Sood, director of Brisk Avenue Dubai, the provisions of the law will apply to the expropriation of property across Dubai. The law, which covers special development zones and free zones including the Dubai International Financial Centre, regulates the terms and conditions under which buildings and facilities can be expropriated, including those that are completed and under construction. It also sets out the terms for providing compensation to the owners whose properties are expropriated, as per a decision issued by the chairman of the Dubai Ruler’s Court.
According to the law, if only a portion of a property is expropriated and the remaining part becomes unfit for use as per Dubai’s construction rules and regulations, full compensation will be provided if the owner does not want to retain it to add it to an adjacent property.
The committee is tasked with reviewing requests for expropriation including requests to assess the viability of expropriating a property to meet the objectives of a project. The committee may propose alternatives to expropriating a property for a project, including land grants. It will also assess whether a proposed project requires full or partial expropriation and evaluate the compensation for expropriated property.
Orders issued by Sheikh Mohammed to expropriate property in Dubai supersede the authority of the committee.
In case the expropriation affects a property that belongs to a local or federal government entity, compensation will be provided as per legislations and procedures approved by the committee.
Expropriations of property conducted before the issuance of the new law should follow all procedures and provide compensation as per previously existing terms and conditions within a year of the effective date of the new legislation. The chairman of the Dubai Ruler’s Court is authorised to extend the deadline by six months. If the deadline is not met, compensation will have to be provided under the terms of the new law.
The law outlines comprehensive procedures for expropriation of property, calculating the value of compensation, and appealing against the expropriation.
The new law annuls clauses of the resolution issued on January 1, 1964 regulating expropriation of private property for public use. The law also annuls any other legislation that may contradict it.
Which countries are the top data producers? After all, with data-fueled applications of artificial intelligence projected, by McKinsey, to generate $13 trillion in new global economic activity by 2030, this could determine the next world order, much like the role that oil production has played in creating economic power players in the preceding century.
While China and the U.S. could emerge as two AI superpowers, data sources can’t be limited to concentrations in a few places as we have with an oil-driven economy — it needs to be drawn from many, diverse sources and future AI applications will emerge from new and unexpected players. The new world order taking shape is likely to be more complex than a simple bi-polar structure, especially since data is being produced at a pace that boggles the mind.
Building on our pastwork mapping the digital evolution and digital competitiveness of different countries around the world, we wanted to try to locate the deepest and widest pools of useful data. This is essential to run the myriad machine learning models critical to AI. To do so, it is useful to make a distinction between the raw volume of data and a measure that we shall call “gross data product” – our version of the new GDP. To identify the world’s top “gross data product” producers, we propose using four criteria:
Volume: Absolute amount of broadband consumed by a country, as a proxy for the raw data generated.
Usage: Number of users active on the internet, as a proxy for the breadth of usage behaviors, needs and contexts.
Accessibility: Institutional openness to data flows as a way to assess whether the data generated in a country permits wider usability and accessibility by multiple AI researchers, innovators, and applications.
Complexity: Volume of broadband consumption per capita, as a proxy for the sophistication and complexity of digital activity.
There are several nuances to note. For one, we recognize that the digital trace that is generated by computers around the world spans a very wide range of activities, from sending an SMS text message to making a financial transaction. To enable an apples-to-apples comparison across the world, we use broadband per capita as a measure of such breadth and complexity (in some ways, mimicking the use of per capita income as a proxy for overall prosperity).
Second, there are differences across countries in terms of how private data is shared across agencies and whether there are digital identity frameworks that can help connect individuals to their digital activities. These institutional factors could make a difference to how data could eventually be pieced together. We do not call out these distinctions. We chose the countries included in our analysis based on a few considerations: 1) Countries that are the most significant contributors to the global digital economy either because they are high on our earlier digital evolution index score or because they have strong momentum in their digital activities; 2) Countries that represent a reasonable spread in terms of region and socio-economic position; and 3) Countries that provided us with a solid data and evidence base to do the analyses.
Finally, an important consideration in determining accessibility is privacy. Privacy concerns and data protection regulations can help or hinder the abilities for algorithms to develop new capabilities. We take the position for this analysis that an established framework for ensuring privacy and data protection and openness to the mobility of data is a net benefit and a positive contributor to the development of AI over the long term. As an example, consider the problem of fraud detection in financial transactions. Applications that draw upon insights from diverse geographic locations and multiple usage contexts help establish patterns of trustworthiness and help flag security risks; such applications benefit from systems that meet the accessibility criterion. That said, we acknowledge that in the near-term there could be some countries – China being the pre-eminent example – where data-sharing between public and private sector agencies with very little mobility beyond the national borders could violate privacy and openness norms and yet yield a temporary advantage in training algorithms inside a “walled garden.”
Which of these criteria should be used in assessing a potential new world order, based on data? We believe accessibility should remain a foundational criterion. If one were to take the point of view that the biggest and highest impact AI applications are the ones that serve the greatest public purpose, access to data is key. In its recent study of AI for the public good, McKinsey cites access as one of the principal barriers: of the 18 bottlenecks identified by McKinsey, six relate to data availability, volume, quality, and usability.
This chart below shows what happens when the 30 countries we studied were mapped using two of our criteria:
While the U.S. scores well on all three criteria – and this might seem counter-intuitive to prevailing wisdom — China operates with a handicap if global accessibility of the data is considered essential for creating successful AI applications in the future. If the EU (currently including the UK) were to act as a collective, it represents a key producer that could rival the U.S. Besides, China, other BRIC nations, Brazil, India, Russia, could emerge as strong tier two contenders, largely on the strengths of raw data they produce; however, they too would be handicapped by accessibility concerns.
A different set of implications emerge for smaller countries, such as New Zealand, or those unaffiliated with larger economic unions, such as South Korea, but with high openness and mobility in data flows; such countries would benefit from establishing trade agreements in data with other “open” countries and thereby overcome their natural limitations, either in terms of number of users or in terms of total broadband consumed within the country. The forms such trade or data-sharing agreements might take is yet to be determined; however, we can envision that they could be a distinct possibility especially when we recognize that gross data product has value just like any other product that is freely traded today.
Of course, the direction of high-value AI applications is still emerging. There is also a risk of AI itself being over-hyped, misunderstood, and set up for disappointments down the road. But it’s clear that many important applications are already in use and more are coming. Our analytical framework is flexible enough to account for such fluidity. If we use a different set of criteria as being more relevant for driving successful AI applications, we find a different picture emerging. The chart below offers one such possibility, where only complexity and accessibility are considered.
When viewed in this manner, there is a more linear structuring of this “new” data-driven world order. The high broadband consumption per capita and institutionally open countries (in the top right hand portion of the graphic) emerge as the clear winners. One can imagine a scenario where the high complexity and mobility of data flows in the top-right of the graphic allow for a more productive “free-trade” zone, where countries mutually benefit from tapping into each other’s data reservoirs.
Finally, we considered a scenario where all four criteria ought to be considered important. If we assign equivalent weights to all four, a ranking of “new” data producers and an updated world order emerges.
1. United States
2. United Kingdom
3. China
4. Switzerland
5. South Korea
6. France
7. Canada
8. Sweden
9. Australia
10. Czech Republic
11. Japan
12. New Zealand
13. Germany
14. Spain
15. Ireland
16. Italy
17. Portugal
18. Mexico
19. Argentina
20. Chile
21. Poland
22. Brazil
23. Greece
24. India
25. South Africa
26. Hungary
27. Malaysia
28. Russia
29. Turkey
30. Indonesia
Of course, these segmentations provide insight into where the major data producers are based on a set of assumptions about what will be important for the highest-value applications in the future. Our purpose was to acknowledge the uncertainties and show how alternative assumptions yield different scenarios for the world order. A different segmentation and ranking would emerge if were to ask a different set of questions focused on the outcomes, such as economic or geopolitical value through AI that might be assigned to each country or how countries rank in terms of ease of doing digital business currently as they prepare for such a future. We are developing these in future research projects.
Data is the fuel of the new economy, and even more so of the economy to come. In declaring back in 2017 that the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data, The Economist said: “Whether you are going for a run, watching TV or even just sitting in traffic, virtually every activity creates a digital trace — more raw material for the data distilleries.” Algorithms trained by all these digital traces will be globally transformational. It’s possible that a new world order will emerge from it, along with a new “GDP” — gross data product —that captures an emerging measure of wealth and power of nations. It is time we identified what the field looks like now that new competitive and collaborative opportunities are developing.
Amid increasing popularity of virtual currencies in various parts of the world, the Reserve Bank of India on Monday said it is open to exploring the possibility of a digital version of fiat currency. Host of private digital currencies, virtual currencies and cryptocurrencies have gained popularity in recent years, though Indian authorities continue to remain sceptical about them.
In India, the regulators and governments have been sceptical about these currencies and are apprehensive about the associated risks. “Nevertheless, the RBI is exploring the possibility as to whether there is a need for a digital version of fiat currency and in case there is, then how to operationalise it,” the RBI said in its booklet on ‘Payment Systems in India — Journey in the Second Decade of the millennium.
Central bank digital currencies is a legal tender and a central bank liability in digital form denominated in a sovereign currency and appearing on the central bank’s balance sheet. It is in the form of electronic currency, which can be converted or exchanged at par with similarly denominated cash and traditional central bank deposits. Innovations are changing the payments space rapidly.
This has made central banks around the world to examine whether they could leverage on technology and issue fiat money in digital form,” the RBI’s booklet said. It further said the RBI has already established a framework to capture the location and business details of commercial bank branches, ATMs and banking correspondents across the country. It is envisaged to extend a similar framework to capture and maintain information about point of sales terminals and other payment system touchpoints, the booklet said. The booklet covers the journey of the Payment and Settlement Systems in India during the second decade of the millennium — from the beginning of 2010 till the end of 2020.The RBI said it captures the transformation of India in the sphere of payment and settlement systems. It describes, inter-alia, the legal and regulatory environment underpinning the digital payments systems, various enablers, payment options available to consumers, extent of adoption during 2010 to 2020, it added.
The Reserve Bank of India had earlier come out with booklets on payment systems in 1998 and 2008. This third booklet in the series is expected to This third booklet in the series is expected to serve as a reference document for those interested in knowing more about payment system developments in the country, the RBI said.
“This booklet is a narrative of how the carefully thought-out steps taken by the RBI have resulted in transforming India into a country riding the crest of a wave in the evolution of digital payments,” said RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das in the ‘Foreword’ of the booklet. While realising that ‘well begun is half done’, Das said the RBI is mindful of the challenges ahead. Various initiatives are underway to realise India’s vision on payment systems.
The RBI seeks to usher in a payment ecosystem that enables safe, quick and affordable digital payments to everyone across the country as well as in cross-border payments and transactions, he added. The factors inhibiting the digital push are connectivity issues, inadequate acceptance infrastructure, lack of familiarity with newer, alternative payment methods, delay in getting complaints resolved and security and privacy concerns.”RBI has acknowledged the same and to address these issues has put in place systems like, consumer awareness programmes, ombudsman schemes, etc,” the booklet said. It further said that such is the development of digital payment in the country that it has started expanding beyond boundaries.Implementation of successful Indian practices in developed countries of Europe and the U.S. is testimony of India being perceived as the leader in payment systems now, said the booklet.
The organization digit insurance protection raised its first outside subsidizing round a year ago at a valuation of $870 Mn
It has raised about $200 Mn till date.
Digit Insurance professes to have noticed a 31.9% development rate over the most recent nine months
Bengaluru-based insurtech startup Digit Insurance has become the main Indian startup to enter the unicorn club in 2021, in the wake of raising INR 135 Cr ($18 Mn) from existing speculators at a valuation of $1.9 Bn. It has raised the financing as development cash-flow to meet the dissolvability edge prerequisite, following a 31.9% development over the most recent nine months.
Digit Insurance has raised about $200 million till date from marquee financial specialists A91 Partners, Faering Capital and TVS Capital, which own about 11% stake in the organization. It raised its first outer subsidizing round last January at a post-cash valuation of about $870 Mn. The organization had raised $84 Mn (INR 614 Cr at current change rate) as a piece of this round, in which Indian cricketer Virat Kohli and Bollywood entertainer Anushka Sharma implanted about $340K (INR 2.5 Cr).
Before this, the organization depended on an inward capital implantation from Fairfax Holdings. The advertisers have put more than $142 mn in Digit Insurance in 2017 and 2018, and own about 88% stake in the organization. “Our technique was to improve items and measure and back it up with great assistance. This is working for us to accomplish development,” Goyal clarified
Established in 2016, Digit Insurance is a tech-driven general insurance agency that offers altered arrangements on wellbeing, auto, travel, cell phones, business properties, for example, stores and occasion homes. It extended its business during the pandemic by offering new items like fixed advantage cover for Covid-19 under Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority’s (IRDAI) sandbox activity.
The organization asserts that it was going to connect with in excess of 20 Lakh Indian through their Digit Group Illness Insurance item, which offered assurance against Covid-19 and 7 Vector-borne sicknesses like dengue, jungle fever, filariasis, ala azar, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis and the zika infection.
As indicated by an IBEF report, the Indian protection industry was relied upon to reach $280 Bn before the finish of 2020 and develop at a build yearly development rate (CAGR) of 12-15% throughout the following three to five years. The market is required to develop as the Indian government pushes for protection infiltration and multiplication of protection plans. As indicated by BlackSoil’s fellow benefactor and chief Ankur Bansal, the insurtech will be a top choice among speculators in 2021 as the portion is required to develop.
Planning to launch your own start-up? Now is the time. India is in its best ever phase of startup ecosystem and the economic environment is favoring the aspiring minds. However, careful planning and futuristic approach are imperative to ensure your startup don’t end like the 94% that shut down their shutters within the first year of operation.
Funding is an extremely significant aspect in line with meeting the vision of a business. Funding and fundraising, both are fundamental modern business scenarios that support the growth of a startup. The first round of funding, popularly known as seed funding forms the basis of fundraising. It is followed by series A, B and C rounds of funding. While the seed funding typically refers to the basic, initial round of funding, series A, B, and C differ in the business maturity and the type of investors involved. The series funding helps in the evolvement of a startup to a full-fledged organization by helping it with calculated funds at crucial steps.
Here are a few successful startup funding options in India that will help you support your business with the indispensable finance requirements.
Go for Crowdfunding
The concept of crowdfunding is quite similar to mutual funds on a basic level. In this option, more than one investor is involved and they offer a fixed amount of money based on your business idea, goal, plan of action, and plans of making a profit. All you need to have are people who truly believe in your business idea.
Crowdfunding is gaining popularity as it ascertains the belief that your idea is also believed by other experienced players in the market. Crowdfunding also helps you in getting the crucial funds from the idea stage itself. You can gather crowdfunding from friends, family, and entrepreneurs who believe in your business concept and have the means to come together and fund your aspiration.
Consider Self-funding
Popularly known as bootstrapping, it is an ideal plan of action when it is hard to convince others of your business idea and vision. Often investors ask for traction before making an investment, the initial round of self-funding allows you to prove the feasibility of your idea and build confidence in the investors for a further round of funding.
Bootstrapping is a great idea for startup funding especially if the initial business requirement is small. It also gives you the freedom of being your own boss. You’re not answerable to anyone and it allows you to keep an eye on the revenue earnings as well.
Get in touch with the Venture Capitalists
A sure shot destination for big bets, venture capitalists offer you professionally managed funds who are looking for startups that have success potential. The best part about venture capital investments is the expertise and monitoring that they bring along. Ordinarily, VCs invest in equity and once the business releases its IPO or is acquired, they leave.
Venture Capitalists usually look for startups with a good enough traction and a strong team. But if you’re opting for venture capital funding, be flexible enough to take their inputs and accept the close monitoring.
Try Angel Investment
There are individuals with surplus cash looking for investing in promising startups and earn their share once it grows to its potential. They can either work alone or collectively in a network to screen startups with huge potential. This funding option has business minds looking to earn interest out of your success and they may expect as high as 30% equity as well.
Although angel investment comes with its issues of high-interest expectations and lesser investments as compared to Venture capitalists; it is important to remember that Google, Yahoo, and even Alibaba were a result of Angel investing.
Conclusion
Funding is required to take the best advantage of the existing and upcoming market opportunities. Even if you initially go for bootstrapping, outside funding is required to sustain in the long run.
From having a handful of tech companies to dozens and thousands of innovative new ventures, India’s startup ecosystem has grown immensely in the past decade
India has witnessed launch of more than 55,000 startups to date with more than 3,200 startups raising $63 Bn in funding in the last five and half years alone
Home to 34 unicorns, and 52 soonicorns with a potential to become unicorns by 2022, the world’s second largest startup ecosystem is poised for disruption
In just over half a decade (2014-2019), India has shown a great appetite for technology, data and the internet. The internet paved the way for thousands of startups to rise over the past decade, address unique problems, transform entire industries and create new segments!
From having a handful of tech companies to dozens and now thousands of innovative new ventures, India’s startup ecosystem grew immensely in the past decade. From 29K startups in 2014, the number has grown exponentially from 2015-2018 and will touch 55K startups by the end of 2020.
With overall funding skyrocketing to touch $63 Bn between 2014 to H1 2020 alone, India has seen entry of 34 startups in the unicorn club having a combined valuation of $115.5 Bn.
Celebrating the success of the startup ecosystem in the last decade, we are happy to announce the launch of the second edition of our flagship report – The State Of Indian Startup Ecosystem, 2020.
The report will act as a go-to-guide for just about everything one may want to understand about the Indian startup ecosystem. With deep, data-driven insights to influence strategic decision-making in governance, investments, growth, and other core aspects driving the Indian startup ecosystem.
The State Of Indian Startup Funding
It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that 2020 has brought some very unprecedented changes in the business world. For Indian startups, the funding winter this year has begun in the middle of sweltering summers. While the ecosystem has come a long way since 2014, going through the golden period of funding between 2015 and 2017, after a couple of years of slow but mature growth, 2020 has been a year of decline.
Over the years, the growth of startups has brought in more international investors and boosted their confidence towards India. Fundraising reported by SEBI-registered (Category 1) venture capital funds grew from INR 326 Cr in 2014 to over INR 2,703 Cr in 2019 – an 8x surge in five years. Also, the share of actual capital raised to commitments in 2014 was 35% compared to 61% in 2019, indicating the growing investor interest towards investment opportunities in India.
With such huge money at play, the Indian startup ecosystem has a lot to lose due to the pandemic. It has already left millions of people jobless and created a liquidity crisis in many places. Covid-19 has created a new market in almost every sense, for instance, once-lauded metrics such as the gross revenue and total addressable market has been usurped by sustainability-focussed goals like EBITDA and economies of scale.
The numbers make it quite evident that investment activity in startups is slowing down post the pandemic. Therefore, in a scenario (i.e. Case 1) where high ticket value investments in established startups will continue to flow along with greater investor confidence towards the beneficiary sectors such as edtech, fintech, online gaming and OTT, ecommerce and enterprise tech. The total capital raised by Indian startups in 2020 is estimated to reach $11.3 Bn in this case, which can be termed the best-case scenario, an 11% decline compared to the previous year.
On the contrary, in Case 2, high ticket size investments will take a hit and there will be only moderate investor confidence towards the beneficiary sectors. Under this scenario, the total capital inflow in Indian startups is expected to dip in 2020 by as much as 36.2% compared to 2019, to reach $8.1 Bn. In both scenarios the total capital inflow in Indian startups for the year 2020 is expected to be the lowest since 2017.
State Of Unicorns And Soonicorns
From a single unicorn in 2012, 10 in 2016, India has seen 34 startups attaining unicorn status with a current combined valuation of $115 Bn.
In our recent analysis of the Indian startup ecosystem based on the current pace and growth and other factors we have identified 52 soonicorns which have the potential to enter the unicorn club by 2022.
There are 53 startups in India that have the potential to achieve $1 Bn plus valuation by the end of 2022 as per our analysis. Out of which the single highest number of startups (19) is from fintech. This is different from the same in unicorns where enterprise tech startups (7) have the highest number.
The State Of Indian Startup Hubs
As we closed the first half of 2020, Bengaluru the long hailed startup capital of India still has its crown intact with a total funding amount of $28 Bn across 1,876 deals between 2014 to H1 2020.
Lately, in addition to the top three hubs (Bengaluru, Delhi NCR and Mumbai) emerging hubs such as Pune and Hyderabad have recorded a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 45% and 37% respectively.
In the tier segment, Jaipur and Goa have earned their spot in the top 10 startup hubs as of H1 2020 based on the number of funding deals. Interestingly, Jaipur a tier 2 city has outperformed Kolkata- a celebrated tier 1 metro.
The State Of Indian Investor Landscape
With the beginning of a new decade in the 21st century earlier this year, the journey of Indian startup ecosystem has entered a new phase. From a handful of investors and a few startups to over 49K startups and over 2,000 Indian and international investors, the startup ecosystem has come a long way in the past five years. International investors now routinely come to Indian shores to invest in the burgeoning tech ecosystem.
While angels and corporations undoubtedly have played a big role in funding trends, according to DataLabs by Inc42 analysis, 2019 was not one of the better years for venture capitalists.
As per our analysis, till the second half of 2020, there are approximately 4,640 active investors in India. Among these, the majority or 59% (2,751) are angel investors and 18.3% (849) are venture capital firms. Overall there is a downward trend in terms of unique investor participation similar to what has been observed in 2019. However, the frequency of participation by the existing investor is on the rise.
Looking Beyond 2020
While the first decade of the 21st century was all about bringing India’s cities and metros online, the past ten years have been about using the internet to create businesses and startups and take the digital torch to Tier 2, 3 markets and rural India. India is today home to the world’s largest working population and startups are expected to take full advantage of this in the next five years.
After steady growth in 2018 and 2019, in 2020 too, the Indian startup ecosystem was expected to remain stable in terms of funding and investor interest, but the pandemic has changed the game completely. With the funding winter coming in early, there’s a bigger focus on sustainability, which is also expected to play a part in the number of funding deals.
Nevertheless, there are several positives still in the Indian market to give us hope about the future of startups. Growing from a nascent stage to a flourishing ecosystem to the current stage of maturity and stability, Indian startups have some of the best market conditions to take advantage of with digital products and services adoption at an all-time high. Once the medium and long-term pandemic impact subsides, there’s no stopping Indian startups.
By 2025, the number of startups in India is expected to cross 100K, creating more than 3.25 Mn jobs in the process. At the same time, the total funding in Indian startups is likely to increase to over $150 Bn and with the total value creation exceeding $500 Bn.
Dubai is a land of immense opportunities and it’s no different for the startup ecosystem. With no shortage of venture capital and technology at fingertips, Dubai is growing as the major place to breed top tech startups. The nation is taking huge steps to become the next silicon valley in east with several grants, technology conferences and pitching competitions. From the plethora of innovation, we have curated for you 30+ top startups in Dubai to watch out for.
Having Intel and Microsoft as partners, Avidbeam is a video intelligence and analytics platform that is deriving value from big video data. They have been serving various industries like automotive, smart cities, and retail, to name a few. The fact that they were the most promising Big Data startups (2017) and won the grand prize at CES Exhibition 2018 held in Las Vegas makes them one of the top startups in Dubai!
Meddy has made finding the best doctor in Qatar easy. From pediatricians, skin, dentists to general doctors, you can get all the information about them without going to the clinic. You can even know about various home remedies and doctors’ opinions via their blog!
Visit a place frequently? Get the best prices at the sites you frequent the most. Repeat is into growing local businesses and providing personalized pricing for brands you love repeating!
Whether its customer support, development work or marketing/sales – Ziwo provides API based Customer relationship management (CRM) system for making communication all simple. They boast clients like Cleartrip, UAEXchange, and deliver, to name a few, making them one of the top startups in Dubai 2019!
Almentor is one of the top startups in Dubai and the world’s largest Arabic content for video based continuous learning. It’s an e-learning and professional people development platform serving the Middle East, specifically with 412,512 learning experiences and counting!
Founders:Abdelrahman Fahmy, Hesham Heikal, Husni Khuffash, Ibrahim Kamel, Ihab Fikry
Total Funding: $ 4.5M
Founding Year: 2016
Category: Broadcasting, E-Learning, Education, Marketplace, Online Portals, Video
The list offers personalized designer fashion and luxury products from the world’s best boutiques – all in just one swipe. Making an impression with luxury fashion has become lighter in pockets now!
Unifonic is one of the top startups in Dubai that makes cloud communications more accessible, cost-efficient, and simpler to implement. 5000+ happy clients have been building powerful communication capabilities like SMS, voice, verification, etc. into their systems using secure & well defined APIs.
Instabug empowers mobile teams to release their products with confidence through the comprehensive bug and crash reports, in-app surveys, and real-time user feedback. Currently being one of the startups in Dubai, they have more than 25,000 Mobile Teams Rely on Instabug for their bug fixes!
Jamalon is the largest online bookstore in the Middle East, offering more than 9.5 million titles of Arabic and English books with home delivery. Their membership is completely free, and they also feature weekly deals that you wouldn’t want to miss!
Smartphones are a thing of the past as we have a new technological revolution with smart glasses! Amal Glass is a smart glass with around 28 features like weather, recorder, maps, etc. that is changing the lives of virtually blind in the UAE. Being winners of the Arab Innovation Network, Supernova challenge, and having won awards from World Economic Forum makes them one of the startups in Dubai to look forward to!
Aumet allows you to access to 50,000+ medical manufacturers that you don’t usually meet at trade shows and exhibitions. They have covered all major continents and regions intending to be a partner and not a broker! Currently signed agreements range from $5.5 million, making it one of the startups in Dubai!
Founders: Ashraf Samhouri, Jamal Abu Samra, Mohammad Issa, Tariq Khader, Yahya Aqel
Total Funding: $ 75K
Founding Year: 2016
Category: Health Care, Hospital, Manufacturing, Medical
You can call it the Netflix for Arabs! They are one of the startups in Dubai that offer subscription video on demand (SVOD) as a service. They stream thousands of blockbuster Hollywood movies, TV shows, documentaries, kid’s entertainment, and dedicated Arabic and Bollywood content – to 19 countries across the Middle East and North Africa!
Clearly aims to change the world of banking altogether – from investing, saving to spending. Clearly, you can have your bank in your pocket with no branches. With invite-only access, they are clearly one of the most promising top startups in Dubai 2019!
It’s all great when you buy luxury, but what if you want to sell it back? The Luxury Closet is a global online boutique for buying and selling new and pre-loved luxury items like handbags, clothes, watches, and jewelry. They are one of the top startups in Dubai in the luxury segment that boast more than 16,000 treasures from top luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Van Cleef, and Arpels, Cartier, Rolex etc.!
Planning a holiday can be cumbersome. Still, we have Holidayme to provide customized travel packages to customers across the Middle East. You can design holiday packages, hotels, sightseeing activities, and transfers for destinations all over the world!
Did you know you can save money from waste – literally monetize thrash? Bikya is one of the top startups in Dubai with being the first platform in Egypt and the Arab world to exchange inorganic waste for things you want! They have special offers for companies and shops as well.
An awarded startup by Forbes, Souqalmal is one of the top startups in Dubai for financial services. They are the go-toto comparison site for Credit Cards, Mortgages, Personal Loans, Car Loans, Car Insurance, Health, and Travel Insurance.
InvoiceBazaar is one of the top startups in Dubai that aims to bridge the supplier-buyer relationship by digitizing their manual transactions. This digitization helps in providing working capital finance to an SME.
Altibbi is a medical community housing more than 85,364 trusted doctors making it one of the top startups in Dubai for healthcare. They provide immediate medical consultations via high-definition phone calls or personal conversations at any time. In addition, they give the most significant comprehensive Arab medical content for all topics specialized in medicine and health!
Beehive is one of the top startups in Dubai, which is also MENA’s first regulated peer to peer lending platform.It provides short-term finance for SMEs with Invoice Finance. They directly connect businesses with investors willing to lend against their invoices. They also have an eligibility test to check if the SME is fundable!
Health at hand provides an affordable, accessible, and confidential platform to connect with doctors instantly. They offer video consultation as a subscription service for citizens as well as B2B packages for businesses.
Seez is a used car platform for the UAE, Kuwait, and KSA market providing fair market price and depreciation of any car. You can search for new and used cars as well as cars for lease and benefit from price negotiation. They also provide daily, updated hot deals!
Derq is one of the top startups in Dubai that aims to provide a safer and smarter road powered by patented AI and predictive analytics. Having graduated from techstars and featured in the World Economic Forum as startups in Dubai, they have been successfully making travel safe!
Getting home services is a real task – but Service Market is one of the top startups in Dubai that is helping us find the right helper! With 25+ home services listed, they have been featured in Entrepreneur, Forbes, and leading Arab publishing!
Bulk Whiz gets your groceries sorted at bulk prices instead of the full price! Just order from 20+ categories available instantly with delivery. They also share deals as high as 80% off!
Sprii is a global ecommerce platform for mothers with amazing deals! They have a range of products like toys, cradles, utensils, etc. that an aspiring or present mum would want to have. You can even request a product, and they will get it delivered for you.
Your search of home technicians ends with one of the startups in Dubai – ajeer. They provide access to best home maintenance services at low rates making your home life more comfortable.
Get exclusive access in the immersive 360 degree experience of major events happening around! 360 VUZ wants you to be anywhere you want to be from anywhere in the world from your phone. They are one of the startups in Dubai with Samsung, L’oreal etc as partners and featured in Forbes, CNN, Reuters etc.! They have also been invested by the Government of Dubai, Plug and play, vision 2030 Dubai and Dtech!
A readers delight – Abjjad is an Arabic ebook platform having 1,000,000 Arab readers. They are one of the top startups in Dubai having won ‘Business Women category’ at Union Bank award in 2015, Golden award for best online community, and earned $ 160,000 from 45 investors around the world!
We all want jobs we love – and Bloovo aims to match you with jobs you will enjoy passionately in Dubai, UAE, and gulf region! They are one of the top startups in Dubai in HR tech space, having featured with Forbes, Entrepreneur, CNBC, etc.
State of the art cleaning services is just a click away with MATIC. It’s the largest SaaS based marketplace to connect you with highly qualified cleaners across the Middle East. They raised $3 million in Series A from MEVP and have completed more than 1,50,000 bookings!
Noon is a leading ecommerce platform for the Middle East region. From home, beauty, kitchen, or groceries – they have covered it all to be your go-to site for shopping. They feature exclusive tempting deals that are huge money savers!
From healthcare to automobile or hard tech like Augmented reality or virtual reality – Dubai is working very hard to bring it’s ecosystem as one of the best startup breeding grounds in the world. There is no best time, but right now, to start a business and become one of the top startups in Dubai!
The global startup economy remains large, creating nearly $3 trillion in value, a figure on par with the GDP of a G7 economy.1 Seven out of the top 10 largest com- panies in the world are in technology — the highest concentration of any industry sector among the top global companies — and 2019 saw close to $300 billion in venture capital investments around the world.2
Nonetheless, even at the end of 2019, not all was well. Inclusion remained a fundamental challenge for tech ecosystems, with only 14.1% of founders globally being female, as our Startup Genome research shows.3 Value creation by ecosystems remains concentrated, with about 74% of all value produced being concentrated in the top 10 performing cities globally. Tech giants like WeWork and the stable of unicorns funded by Softbank began to falter — ranging from major crises, as in the case of WeWork; to a capital crunch for others.4
But despite these challenges, we did not expect the major threat of the COVID-19 crisis to global ecosys- tems. Since the crisis hit:
Layoffs among startups are rampant, with just over a third of startups globally not laying off staff nor cutting hours, and with the typical startup with full- time layoffs letting go an average 33% of the staff; and
Startups are facing a double whammy with a drop in consumer demand at the same time VC investments are dropping, leading to a crunch for capital. In fact, four out of every 10 startups have 3 months or fewer of capital runway, meaning they will die if they do not raise additional money and their revenue and expenses remain the same.
While we see early signs of a rebound in Asian ecosys- tems — nothing like a return to normal, but a slowdown of the drop — the startup economy is going through a major transition.
In 2020, the State of the Global Startup Economy can be seen through two main angles: the calm before the storm, up to Dec. 2019, and the consequences of the COVID-19-triggered crisis.
Most successful startups of 2020
The Calm Before the Storm
In the lead up to the crisis, the dominating trend for ecosystems globally has been the growing democrati- zation of tech across geographies.
Democratizing the Tech Economy
Despite the concentration of value in tech ecosystems, access to the tech economy is increasingly democra- tized.
In 2013, tech unicorns became a phenomenon, with the term popularized by Aileen Lee from CowboyVC.5 6 The name alludes to the rare and nearly mythical quality
of these companies. But
while still powerful they are not so rare anymore.
When we analyzed com- panies in the billion-dol- lar club — exits or private companies in technology with over $1 billion in val- uation — in 2013-2019 we see that in 2013 only four ecosystems produced unicorns or billion-dollar exits. Today, a cumula- tive 80+ ecosystems have done so, astoundingly.
Why there is no better time than now to invest in startups
Investments in the Indian start-up ecosystem surged 322 per cent in July year-on-year. They rose to $5.61 billion last month, against $1.33 billion in July 2019, according to data from Tracxn, a firm that tracks investments and financials of private companies and start-ups. The funding that went into Jio Platforms’ alone accounted for nearly 87 per cent of the total amount
The number of companies that garnered the investment, though, fell to 82 last month, against 120 in the same period in 2019.
Top-funded sectors
The top-funded sectors include telecom ($4,854 million), enterprise infrastructure ($236.2 million), ed-tech ($164.95 million), real estate- and construction-tech ($78.1 million), retail ($57.42 million) and media and entertainment ($53.90 million). The consumer sector, which encompasses online and technology-enabled consumer-facing companies in the business-to-consumer (B2C) space, raised $183.47 million.
While Jio Platforms, Nxtra Data, Vedantu, Zolo and Toppr were the top five funded companies in July 2020, the most active investors – based on the number of deals in July – included Mumbai Angels, Matrix Partners India, Accel, LetsVenture and Unicorn India Ventures.
