Beltone’s VC arm to manage Citadel Holding’s startup fund: Beltone Venture Capital— Beltone Financial Holding’s venture capital arm — has partnered with the UAE’s Citadel International Holdings’ CI Venture Capital to manage a USD 30 mn fund that will back fast-growing startups in the MENA region, Beltone said in a press release (pdf).

The fund has invested in a number of familiar names: The fund has already deployed funds in a number of startups across the region, including local courier startup Bosta, trucking startup Trella, homeware brand Ariika, and UAE-headquartered fintech Qlub.

It will target early-stage startups: The fund will mostly invest in pre-seed and seed funding rounds, and will then support the “best-performing portfolio companies in follow-up rounds,” Beltone Venture Capital CEO Ali Mokhtar said. It will also take part in “attractive” investments at different funding stages, he added.

What they said: “The fund is a continuation of the same strategy Beltone Venture Capital hasbeen executing since its inception in 2023. This is aligned with our fundamental principle of acting as founders’ partners and value investors, supporting startups' scale-up and reaching their full potential,” Mokhtar said.

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