Du in $50m push to expand regional startups

Emirates Integrated Telecommunications, operator of the Du brand in the UAE, has launched a venture capital fund to help scale up regional startups.

The $50 million fund will be managed by Abu Dhabi-based Shorooq. It will focus on companies across fintech, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud, loyalty, gaming, enterprise software and customer service technologies in the UAE and other GCC countries.

“Through Du Ventures, we are investing in technologies and founders that align closely with our strategic priorities,” Du CEO Fahad Al Hassawi said in a statement published on the Dubai Financial Market.

The fund aims to speed up the commercialisation of emerging technologies, leveraging Du’s scale, infrastructure and enterprise reach, he said.

The announcement comes as Gulf institutions and sovereign wealth funds no longer view venture capital as an alternative asset class, but rather as a core component of their holdings, analysts told AGBI last month.

“This is no longer an early stage experiment. This is capital chasing inevitability. Venture capital is evolving from finding the next big thing to getting access before [everyone else],” said Gautam Jain of SC Ventures, the venture building arm of Standard Chartered bank.

In April Du said quarterly revenues grew by 7 percent year on year to AED4.1 billion ($1.1 billion), supporting a 16 percent jump in net profit to AED834 million.

The UAE wealth fund, the Emirates Investment Authority, owns 50.1 percent of Du.

Further reading:

• Du first quarter profit rises to $227m with revenues up 7%
• Former Du CEO on the promise and peril of AI
• Du proposes additional dividend of $490m for 2025

The company’s stock was trading at AED11.46 on Wednesday afternoon, up nearly 16 percent in the year to date.

Shorooq currently manages more than $500 million in assets, according to its website. It invested in the $1 billion funding round for Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs, a Paris-based AI startup, in March.