venture capital Archives — Carrington Malin

January 16, 2023
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In early January 2023, Dubai Economic Agenda ‘D33’ was approved by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai. Among the economic goals, Dubai aims to create 30 unicorns (normally a startup valued at $1 billion or more) by 2033.

I was asked by MEED, a leading Middle East business intelligence service, to comment on whether it is possible for Dubai to create a unicorn almost every year and how this might be achieved..

Dubai has never been afraid of setting bold goals and has gained a reputation for meeting them, more often than not. However, creating 30 companies valued at $1 billion in just 10 years? Is that possible?

Globally, unicorn startups tend to be early movers in the biggest new tech sectors. To become a unicorn startups must find a way of tapping into or creating a new fast growing market that will make an impact on a global scale. Such startups are formed by risk-takers that are able to scale their companies very quickly, and that can attract enough venture capital funding to make that possible.

A big plus in Dubai’s favour is that it has been actively seeking out and targeting the most promising future economy sectors and building programmes into its economic plans. Recent initiatives aim to encourage new, fast growing companies in artificial intelligence, robotics cryptocurrency, blockchain and metaverse technologies. It is early days, but sectors such as these are among the world’s fastest growing.

The city also provides an evironment where international businesses thrive, located at the crossroads of Africa. Asia and Europe, with world class business facilities. Dubai was recently ranked first regionally and fifth worldwide in the World’s Best Cities report 2023, which ranked the best global cities to live, work, invest and visit.

“Venture capital in the region has always concentrated on the near term, forcing deep technology (deep tech) startups to leave the Middle East in order to get funding. Dubai will need to attract investors that have both the vision and the expertise to invest in deep tech.”

So, Dubai is ideally located to target some of the fastest growing regions of the world. has a reputation for entrepreneurship and is a great place to live, work and invest. So, what’s missing?

In my mind, the missing piece of the puzzle could be the venture capital to fund the type of cutting-edge startups that will become unicorns. The Middle East region has always been a little conservative when it comes to investing in tech ventures. Although things are changing fast, it is often the most forward-thinking startups that are passed over by VCs in the region. To support a volume of startups in the world’s fastest growing new tech sectors, Dubai will need to encourage the investors that are focusing on those new sectors too.

If you are a MEED subscriber, you can read Jennifer Aguinaldo’s full article here.


July 9, 2019
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Yesterday’s Bloomberg story quoting new figures from UK market research firm Preqin, tells a similar story to those we’ve been reading during the past week. The stats show the same downward trend for venture capital activity in China, with the value of venture deals during the second quarter of 2019 falling far short of Q2 2018.

Continue reading this story on Asia AI News (Medium)


July 8, 2019
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Chinese AI venture investment deals fell 63 percent in value during the first half of 2019, but AI leaders remain upbeat.

As mentioned in Wednesday’s post, investment in Chinese tech ventures has continued to slow down throughout the first half of 2019. As we leave H1 behind, more and more data is coming out to support this.

Yesterday, the South China Morning Post published figures from Beijing-based information source ITJUZI.com, reporting that ‘new economy’ investments in China continued their slide into the second quarter, dropping 62 per cent year -on-year to RMB 154.3 billion ($22.4 billion). The only bit of good news was that the overall rate of decline in investment may have slowed from Q1 to Q2.

Continue reading this story on Asia AI News (Medium)


July 4, 2019
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The growth in China’s investment in artificial intelligence ventures over the past few years has been nothing less than explosive. China is now home to more ‘AI unicorns’ than anywhere else in the world (statistics differ greatly, but CB Insights counts six out of the top 11 unicorns in its top AI startups list, while some others put the count much higher).

According to ZDNet, China’s funding of AI startups grew from about $1 billion in 2016 to more than $8 billion in 2018, accounting for 44 percent of all global AI startup funding (with the U.S.’s accounting for 41%). However, investment in China AI ventures has slowed greatly compared to last year.

Continue reading this story on Asia AI News (Medium)