Dubai’s FinTech Hive hosts the flagship startup investor event in the metaverse
FinTech Hive, the startup accelerator backed by the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), will host its annual investor day in the metaverse, marking the first time startup founders will be able to present their concepts to investors in the new. digital space.
More than 40 fintech startup founders will participate in the flagship event on Nov. 10, where they will interact with the program’s finance and knowledge partners, FinTech Hive said on Friday.
“DIFC’s accelerator programs continue to attract the world’s most innovative financial sector start-ups and we enjoy connecting them with meaningful partners and serious investors,” said Mohammad Alblooshi, Sector Head of FinTech at DIFC.
“Interest continues to grow in our region from global investors, which is why we are leveraging the metaverse to offer them increased access to an exclusive group of promising startups that have graduated from our accelerator program.”
The metaverse is the new space where people, represented by avatars or three-dimensional representations, can interact in virtual worlds. It is part of Web3, the next evolutionary step of the internet, with blockchain, decentralization, transparency and greater user utility among its core components.
Dubai and other emirates have taken a number of steps to integrate the metaverse into the UAE’s economy and society. In July, the emirate’s government unveiled the Dubai Metaverse strategy, which aims to create 40,000 jobs and add $4 billion to the emirate’s economy over the next five years.
In May, Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority established its Metaverse HQ, making it the first regulator to have a presence there.
FinTech, meanwhile, remained the highest-funded sector across emerging venture markets – which includes the Middle East – in the first half of 2022, more than tripling to nearly $1.68 billion in the first half of 2022 from a year ago, startup data platform Magnitt said in a recent study.
Funding activity for the sector nearly doubled in 2021, with those in the Middle East and North Africa region alone raising nearly $1 billion, up 78 percent from 2020, FinTech Hive said in its annual report.
Holding Investor Day in the metaverse is also in line with the partnership DIFC and FinTech Hive recently entered into with Emirates NBD, Dubai’s largest lender by assets, and US tech major Microsoft in August to launch a global accelerator program for metaverse start-ups.
“As we continue to cement our position as a global financial center and a FinTech and innovation hub, the metaverse will play an important role for the DIFC FinTech Hive in leading innovation in the future of financial services,” Alblooshi said.
Home to nearly 200 start-ups, DIFC’s FinTech Hive is one of the largest FinTech accelerators in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia and has teamed up with national and international entities to support start-ups.
It has already concluded its 2022 Scale-Up programme, which saw 10 FinTech start-ups in at least the Series A funding stage pitch their technologies to investors. The AccelerateHER program, meanwhile, has continued to support female entrepreneurs, with 35 women participating in workshops and mentoring.
FinTech Hive’s funding partners include Dubai Future District Fund, Abu Dhabi-based Shorooq Partners, Wamda, Gulf Capital, Dubai Cultivat8 and Impact46.
In September, it teamed up with Kuwait-based Islamic lender Boubyan Bank to launch a new accelerator program that will support the development of start-ups in the Gulf state and the wider region.
Updated: November 4, 2022, 3:23 p.m
