{"id":652272,"date":"2017-01-04T04:06:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-04T04:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2017\/01\/04\/2016-was-a-good-year-for-mena-startups\/"},"modified":"2017-01-04T04:06:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-04T04:06:39","slug":"2016-was-a-good-year-for-mena-startups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2017\/01\/04\/2016-was-a-good-year-for-mena-startups\/","title":{"rendered":"2016 was a good year for MENA startups"},"content":{"rendered":"

2016 was an exciting year for the startup \u2018ecosystem,\u2019<\/strong> Wamda<\/a> says. The UAE is still the central hub of regional investment activity, with investment there 10x more than the closest ranking countries but, generally, \u201cthe entrepreneurship ecosystem began showing early signs of maturity.\u201d Wamda says private equity firms have begun making investments in \u201cregional tech companies\u201d and \u201ccapital availability is increasing with the launch of 11 new venture funds that raised more than double the amount of deployable capital than last year\u2019s funds.\u201d The biggest investments regionally were the USD 350 mn Careem received and the USD 275 mn in Souq.com. There were 15 disclosed agreements in Egypt with a total investment of USD 13.2 mn, putting it in third place regionally in terms of transaction volume behind UAE and Jordan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2016 was an exciting year for the startup \u2018ecosystem,\u2019 Wamda says. The UAE is still the central hub of regional investment activity, with investment there 10x more than the closest ranking countries but, generally, \u201cthe entrepreneurship ecosystem began showing early signs of maturity.\u201d Wamda says private equity firms have begun making investments in \u201cregional tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9257],"tags":[72],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"class_list":["post-652272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-your-way-out","tag-enterpriseam","wpautop","entry"],"acf":{"mongo_id":"013534a1-8669-46e6-9852-d20c908a9bd7","order":"0","is_powered_by":true,"story_type":"1","photo_url":"","photo_position":"above","related_issue":[652233],"teaser":"","voice_url":""},"yoast_head":"\n2016 was a good year for MENA startups - EnterpriseAM Egypt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2017\/01\/04\/2016-was-a-good-year-for-mena-startups\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2016 was a good year for MENA startups\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"2016 was an exciting year for the startup \u2018ecosystem,\u2019 Wamda says. 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