Skyline of Doha, Qatar.
Tim de Waele | Corbis | Getty Images
The Katar Investment Authority uses its assets of more than $500 billion to attract venture capital firms into hydrocarbon-rich states.
The $100 million fund program of the Sovereign Wealth Fund (Investing in International and Regional Venture Capital Funds) is designed to support investments in areas such as technology and healthcare, as Qatar hopes to diversify from its major oil and gas industries.
Now, it has accepted its first group of venture capital fund managers.
B Capital, a technology-focused company led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, is one of the venture capital groups to open in Doha, opening its first Middle East office in the Katari capital. It joins the program with Rasmal Ventures, Utopia Capital Management and Builders VC.
B Capital’s co-CEO Raj Ganguly brings support to Bay State’s AI approach and its support for the industry in particular.
“Given all the sandboxes created here by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) (GCC) is very exciting,” Ganguly told CNBC on Monday in Doha’s Web Qatar Qatar Qatar told CNBC. “We believe innovation can come from anywhere. We want to support the founders from the GCC of a global mindset.”
B Capital focuses on corporate, fintech, healthcare and climate investments, manages over $7 billion in assets and says it targets seeds to late-stage growth technology investments.
QIA’s head of funding, Mohsin Pirzada, is a huge sovereign wealth fund with prizes ranging from Paris Saint-Germain of the French football team to Heathrow Airport in London, and told CNBC that the program has a dual investment mandate.
“First, we seek good business returns, and second, we seek to have a positive impact on Qatar’s VC ecosystem,” he said.
He added that fund funds are looking for venture capitalists to deepen their roots in the country. He added that it aims to “hare a beneficial impact on the local economy to increase transaction traffic in the market and to support the development of a thriving ecosystem supported by a strong private sector.”
Doha Test
The move is due to a particular challenge in attracting financial services companies. In addition to having a young, digitally savvy population, many countries in the Middle East offer incentives to attract homeless financial services companies.
Riyadh, for example, launched a plan to require any company seeking a government contract to transfer its regional headquarters to Saudi Arabia and provide corporate tax benefits. Kingdom has seen several Wall Street companies move to the Saudi capital, including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Lazade and BlackRock.
The UAE is also targeting global companies, billionaire Ray Dalio, hedge fund Brevan Howard, asset manager PGIM and private equity giant general Atlantic will set up an office in the capital Abu Dhabi.
“The keyword here is ‘commendation’ – it’s a relatively small region, so when a country wins, we all win. If we all attract businesses, innovators and help companies scale, we all benefit,” Qia’s Pirzada told CNBC.
