The United Arab Emirates (UAE), a city that has always been a hub for technology companies providing new and innovative ideas, is now the land of opportunities for tech startups. Whether because of its startup ecosystem, its digital infrastructure, its flexible business set up process, its huge number of free zones, or many other factors, the UAE is taking the road to becoming the next Silicon Valley of the Middle East.
If you are in the Middle East, you’ve probably heard about the big Careem and Souq transactions. Those two UAE based startups started at a very small scale. However, they made history when Careem reached an agreement to be acquired by Uber for $3.1 billion. Amazon confirmed the acquisition of Souq for about $580 million. So, who’s going to be the next Careem or Souq in the Middle East?
This article will provide an overview of the five best startups in the UAE you needed to watch out for in 2021.
The following startups are listed amongst the 50 most promising startups in the UAE. According to a list created by Forbes Middle East, factors contributing to creating that list are the raised funds, the team, and the potential market reach of each business.
Startup number one in this regard is Fetchr, a mobile application for shipping and delivery services. It was founded in 2012 by Idriss Al Rifai and Joy Ajlouny when they were working for e-commerce businesses and shared their frustration for shipping challenges in the Middle East, especially countries not having an address system. Together they came up with Fetchr, a mobile application providing shipping services using the customer’s phone as a GPS location. Initially, the startup relied on freelancers to deliver packages to customers on its behalf. Eventually, owning a fleet with its drivers became a courier tech company. Today, Fetchr ships in the UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and Bahrain. In 2017, the company was the rising star of the Middle East, valued at almost $300 million during its latest fund-raising round. Unfortunately, the startup almost filed for bankruptcy. Still, the new management of the company managed to help the company get back on its foot.
Startup number two is The Luxury Closet, an e-commerce platform for pre-owned branded items, founded in 2011 by Krunal Kapoorhe. His first retail experience was at his family’s footwear company in India, followed by his job as a salesman at Louis Vuitton in Dubai, before quickly deciding to launch his own company, The Luxury Closet, from his apartment. It is one of the top startups in Dubai when it comes to selling luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Van Cleef, Cartier, and Rolex. In December 2015, the company reported that almost 150,000 users are actively using The Luxury Closet per month. Additionally, in 2019 the founder managed to get $7.9 million from some of the region’s top VC firms.
Startup number three is Souq Almal, a website offering financial services comparison, founded in 2012 by Abareen Musa back when she was working for MasterCard in Dubai and decided to come up with a way to ease and simplify the procedure of choosing the right financial product, and make the decision-making process less confusing. When using Souq Almal, customers can compare credit cards, mortgages, loans, and insurance from various financial companies in the UAE, such as HSBC, Emirates NBD, and United Arab Bank in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Musa says her startup generated $2 million in revenue in 2015, up 2.5 times from the previous year. Also, mentioning the billionaire Nassef Sawiris is an investor.
The fourth startup is Wrappup, a voice recorder mobile application founded in 2016 by Rami Salman, Ayush Chordia, and Rishav Jalan after they met in a hackathon event at Dubai Academic City in 2015. During the event, they came up with the idea of Wrappup in 24 hours. Eventually, they won a prize, which included a 12-week accelerator program in the United States to develop the idea. Wrappup is not your traditional voice recorder. This mobile application uses artificial intelligence (AI) to record and automatically note action points and keywords in meetings, tag speakers with their names, and search between speeches by inputting any word. In 2016, the company raised an initial $800,000 in funds from investors, including Beco Capital, 500Startups, and others 2016. It was about to raise new funds only before its co-founders decided, without disclosing the terms of the deal, to become part of Voicera, which has also used AI to create a virtual assistant for meetings.
The fifth and final start is Boxit, a mobile application providing storage services, founded in 2016 by Premlal Pullisserry, Abraham Thomas, and Joby Mathew, when once of its founders having a lot of stuff and very little space, started wondering how he could store his stuff at his neighbor’s so he could access it at any time. When he gathered a team and started some research to create easy access, cost-friendly, and safe tech storage solution, yes, that’s Boxit. Customers can install the application and select the number of boxes they want to store. The logistics company will come and pick the boxes and store them in a warehouse. Customers will have a digital catalog of all the items that you have stored in your space. They will only pay for space where their items are stores instead of paying for a complete room or a box. The startup managed to get an investment of $600,000 from different investors in Kuwait and UAE, in addition to a 100,000 from Angel Investors. Moreover, Boxit is the winner of the Kuwait edition of Startup MENA’s GCC Pitch Challenge 2015, the grand champion of Dubai Smart City App Hackathon 2015. The first runner up at Seedstars World’s Dubai 2015 round.
Finally, if you have a unique idea and are willing to translate it into a startup company, well the UAE is the perfect place for you, and Lexyom will definitely help you set up an efficient legal structure for your business.
Reference: https://www.fmeextensions.ae/blog/10-top-startups-in-dubai-2017/
