Doha: A strong backbone of the underlying entrepreneurship ecosystem in Qatar acts as a catalyst for incoming startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), said an senior official during a event.
Founder Institute, the world’s largest pre-seed accelerator, hosted ‘Build Your Global Startup in Qatar with Qatar Financial Centre’ webinar which discussed the advantages of setting up business in Qatar.
Jahongir Burhonov, Vice President of Business Development at the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) shared how QFC is not only attracting local but also international investors to Qatar. He also shed light on the economy of Qatar and country’s efforts in digitilisation opportunities, the ecosystem and the benefits it offers to startups and SMEs as they choose to come in Qatar and set up their base.
Speaking about Qatar being an attractive destination for doing business, Burhonov said, “Qatar is one of the most attractive FDI destination in the GCC attracting $31bn FDI in the last decade and is also nurturing global talent. Qatar’s wealth comes from being the world’s third largest gas reserve countries. Therefore, what is happening in Qatar is very ambitious as it has developed its national vision 2030 which has pillars like health, environment, logistics, and digitisation which is one of the key pillars in terms of national development strategy.”
Speaking about assistance provided by QFC in expanding business to Qatar he said, QFC focusses on four sectors, we have more than 35 plus licensable activities but some of the focus clusters which we specifically target are financial, digital, sports, and media. “A strong backbone of the underlying entrepreneurship ecosystem acts as a catalyst for incoming startups/SMBs. In last 16 years QFC’s existence has reached more than 1200 firms under our platform and around 5,000 plus employees and our footprint in the economy is growing,” he said.
“Qatar houses multiple accelerators, and incubators housing, incubating, R&D support to digital focused start-ups. Technology focused funds are led by leading investors enabling easy access to finance for entrepreneurs in Qatar,” he added.
Qatar has one of the fastest growing digital markets in Middle East and Africa (MEA). The country offers a multi-billion-dollar digital opportunity and boasts one of the highest spending of per capita in terms of digital spending which is 12 times more than MEA average. Speaking about Qatar’s digital market landscape he said, latest statistics show that the current digital spending of Qatar is $2.3bn and there is a potential of that market growing to $3.2bn in the next two years.
“Qatar is a well-connected economy with world class physical and ICT infrastructure and has a center of business excellence in the Middle East region. It hosted first commercial unveiling of the 5G network which is an interesting fact for digital companies as Qatar is the one of the most network ready country in the Middle East in terms of digital adoption. The country offers a holistic experience powered by best-in-class business practices, infrastructure, quality of life and talent,” he added.
Responding to a query, does QFC support a startup to have legal and structural infrastructure to start business in Qatar and serve the world Burhonov said, “Four years ago we started our five year growth strategy (2017-2022) and we tried to understand the startup as a value added to QFC, as our interest is bringing companies to Qatar.
Dr. Hanan El Basha, Founder - The Business Doctor, Empowering Business Strategist said, Founder Institute is a global startup which started from Silicon Valley, California, US and from there it went to the world. It is the world’s largest pre-seed accelerator program with presence in over 200 cities with over 14,000 mentors from all around the world and as a network serving technology to enable businesses. Since 2009 over 3000 companies have graduated from the program with a portfolio value of over $30bn.
“It believes every entrepreneur can have an impact on society, but most startups fail because they lack expert feedback and proper focus during the early (pre-seed) stages. The program helps pre-seed founders and teams get to traction and funding through a devoted support network and structured growth process,” she added.
Since 2009, over 5,000 companies have used the Founder Institute to build global businesses, solve big problems, raise funding, building a co-founding team, recruit a team, transition from employee to entrepreneur, and more.
