Shorooq

The region spent a decade building the on-ramp for startups. The missing piece was the exit. Our founding partner Shane Shin (شين شن) 신유근 sat down with Karl Naim on FINTECH.TV, live from the ADX, to talk about why Shorooq launched the region's first dedicated late-stage growth and pre-IPO fund — the Qatalyst Fund. His argument is one we've made for a while: MENA's venture ecosystem has capital at the early stages, but the pre-IPO gap is the most consequential one left. Mature companies that are ready for public markets or M&A too often stall; not for lack of quality, but for lack of a dedicated vehicle to carry them to the finish line. Qatalyst is built to close exactly that gap. And on the bigger picture, Shane's point lands hard: perception still lags reality. Most of the world hasn't seen Abu Dhabi's ecosystem up close; and the depth of the opportunity here doesn't show up in the statistics until you do. The Gulf isn't just funding companies anymore. It's building the full path to public markets. 🎥 Full conversation on fintech.tv:  https://lnkd.in/d6-BbeUX

Some investments fund a company. Others build a category leader. We're proud to share that we partnered with Emirates Growth Fund (EGF) to lead a strategic growth investment in FMSi (Fleet Management Systems International) via our private equity strategy. Founded in 2003, FMSi is a homegrown regional champion in fleet and mobile-asset management: 1,000+ enterprise customers across energy, construction, logistics and transport, served from the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia through its FMSiTrack platform and AI-powered video telematics. The thesis is clear. Fleet telematics is shifting from an operational tool to mandatory safety-and-compliance infrastructure across the Gulf — and that rewards established, locally-embedded, fully-certified providers. Together with EGF, we're backing FMSi to consolidate the sector and scale a true regional champion across the GCC. As our Partner Maciej Dyl put it: "Private equity is the natural extension of backing founders from their first cheque onwards — the same conviction and operating discipline, applied to companies already leading their market. This is exactly the kind of transaction our private equity strategy is built to lead, and we expect to do more of it." Congratulations to Wassim Mourad and the entire FMSi team. The best chapter starts now. Read the news here: https://lnkd.in/d5pzfsAc

As Saudi Arabia gets set to stage the 2026 edition of Money20/20 Middle East, here’s a special edition of Inc. Arabia built especially for the event, with Network International Group CEO Murat Cagri Suzer on the cover! In an exploration of how the payments powerhouse is gearing up for a new era of digital commerce in the Middle East and Africa, Suzer puts it this way: “What excites me is that the payments industry itself is changing so quickly... We are operating in a region that is embracing those changes quickly; so, there is a real opportunity to help shape what comes next, rather than simply respond to it.” Also in this issue: a deep-dive into the fintech scene in Saudi Arabia, with perspectives from Emon Shakoor إيمان عبد الشكور, founder and CEO, Blossom Accelerator, Omer Zabit, Partner, Shorooq, Abdulhamid Ahmed, founder and Technical Director, هللة بلس | Halalaplus, and James Elliot-Square, Commercial Director - Saudi Arabia, Sovereign PPG Corporate Services. Meanwhile, as our contributors for this issue, Peninsula co-founder and CEO Alistair Paine explains why the next winners in fintech will solve business problems, not banking problems, while Creative Zone Group CEO Lorenzo Jooris discusses why Saudi Arabia doesn’t need more fintech apps—it needs fintech plumbing. Plus, in Inc. Insider, we feature notable players from the fintech and broader startup ecosystem in Saudi Arabia, including Stitch founder Mohamed Oueida, Malaa | ملاءة co-founder and COO Faisal Alqarni, SILQ co-founder and SILQFi CEO Mohammed Aldossary, TABsense-founder and CEO Dr. Mohammad Jaber, SEEDRA Ventures Managing Partner Haitham Alforaih, Wilow co-founder Wejdan A., and AivoraTech founder Remas Alenazi. Also, don’t miss out on our preview of what to expect at this year’s Money20/20 Middle East, with input from organizer Tahaluf’s Annabelle Mander, Steve D., and Kinga Swiderska! Check out the full issue on this link: https://lnkd.in/d7xfbita #IncArabia #Money2020MiddleEast #fintech #innovation #tech #finance #banking #payments #SaudiArabia #KSA #UAE #GCC #MiddleEast #MENA

There's a shift underway in the UAE: founders who once built for the region are now building for the world — and exporting technology, not arbitrage. Our founding partner Shane Shin (شين شن) 신유근 was quoted on exactly that in Resilience by Design, the new research paper from Global Ventures in partnership with the UAE's Ministry of Economy & Tourism: "UAE founders aren't just playing regionally anymore. They're building for the world. We're excited to be pioneering this global shift alongside them." The evidence is everywhere in the report: UAE-founded companies laying down strong domestic foundations, then scaling into Europe, the US and beyond — and drawing capital from the likes of J.P. Morgan, SoftBank Group International and Soros Economic Development Fund. It's the clearest signal yet that the UAE has moved from emerging frontier to a destination of choice in global venture investments. 🔗 Read more here: https://lnkd.in/dZMFiH_Y 

The measure of an evening isn't how many show up. It's who's in the room, and whether they're still talking an hour after the programme ends. Last night in Riyadh, COLABS x Shorooq VIP Mixer brought together the people actually building Saudi's next chapter: founders, C-level operators, and regional heads, in a room that stayed full of real conversation from the first handshake to the last. The evening's highlight was a keynote from our founding partner Shane Shin (شين شن) 신유근, on Shorooq's conviction in Saudi Arabia — why the Kingdom sits at the centre of the region's next decade of value creation, and why capital that commits early and locally is the capital that wins here. His framing set the tone: the Gulf isn't a market you visit, it's one you build in. More than 500 registered — a signal of just how much appetite there is for these connections in the Kingdom. What mattered more was the quality of the ~200 who filled the room: the introductions made, the deals seeded, the relationships that outlast the night. A special thank you to Omar Shah and the team at Colabs for making this happen. None of it comes together without their partnership and the care you put into every detail.

Superapps make the headlines. But it's the rails beneath them that decide whether an ecosystem actually stands up. As Syria's first consumer platforms raise their opening rounds — well ahead of the payment infrastructure they'll one day run on — our Partner Abdul Hameed Arwani gave Enterprise a clear read on where durable value gets built first: "We view infrastructure as the essential first step toward enabling a successful startup ecosystem in Syria. The country needs financial-sector modernisation, telecom and IT upgrades, and real-estate redevelopment. The indicators that moved us from exploration to commitment were the relief of sanctions, international engagement, and regional diplomacy. Sanctions were the fundamental factor." Fintech won't replace the banking system here — over time it will complete it. And regulation, as Abdul Hameed notes, is what converts early momentum into a market capital can trust. We don't chase the recovery. We help build the foundations it stands on. 🔗 Full piece by Enterprise here: https://lnkd.in/d-AKgSr2

The Gulf doesn't reward the best-funded fintech. It rewards the most committed one. That's the throughline in our founding partner Shane Shin (شين شن) 신유근's read, in Enterprise, on why Indian fintech players — locked out of a consumer market already owned by the likes of Tabby | تابي and Tamara — are pivoting to the infrastructure layer instead. His take on why most cross-border entrants stall: 👉 "It's rarely a lack of capital that holds them back. It's a lack of patience and localization." 👉 India's playbook — UPI-style public rails, a homogeneous market, thin-margin scale — mostly doesn't travel. But world-class engineering does. As Shane puts it, selling infrastructure to banks and enterprises "depends less on consumer trust and more on the quality of the technology — often exactly where these founders are world-class." 👉 "The ones who fail run the Gulf as a sales outpost. The ones who succeed either move, or bring on a serious local team with real authority." 🔗 Read the full interview here: https://lnkd.in/dUDM6e7K

On Syria, the investor question isn't whether the opportunity is real. It's whether the ground is ready to hold it. Speaking to Enterprise as Egypt mobilises its private sector around two September reconstruction conferences in Damascus, our Partner Abdul Hameed Arwani put it plainly: "No investor is questioning the market's viability, underlying demand, or the need for solutions. What investors need is clear regulation — frameworks that stabilise the ecosystem, protect capital, and govern how companies are formed." It's a distinction that separates disciplined capital from speculation. The demand is visible across Damascus today. But durable investment — in the telecom, fintech and real-estate infrastructure a recovering economy runs on — follows governance, not headlines. That is how we approach every frontier: with conviction in the long-term story, and patience for the conditions that make it investable. Building responsibly is not slower. It's how capital lasts. Read more on EnterpriseAM via the talented Nourhan Fahmy: https://lnkd.in/d6Q37eGD #Shorooq #Syria #Reconstruction #EmergingMarkets #PrivateCapital #MENA #Infrastructure