2020 in retrospect
2020 was a busy year for us at Startupbootcamp in MENA. Despite the hurdles the pandemic brought to the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the region, for us at Startupbootcamp in MENA it has been a strong year. As one of the most active pre-seed and seed stage investors in MENA, we have doubled our regional portfolio, adding 50+ startups to the Startupbootcamp family this year alone and accelerating startups across Smart City, FinTech and Sports Tech industries.
Last year was definitely challenging too - a period of adapting, learning and growing for everyone in the startup ecosystem. But it is fantastic to see how fast the ecosystem leveled with the challenges. We are grateful for the support our partners, investors and mentors have extended to us and the flexibility startups have shown.
At Startupbootcamp we began the year by launching 3 accelerator programs in Q1 2020. Then with the coming lockdown in early spring we needed to shift all programs online and figure out a new way of doing accelerators. We ended the year by launching 2 more programs, one digital and one hybrid. As Dubai opened up, we wanted to bring in the hybrid model to combine the best of in-person value that an accelerator program brings and flexibility digital access to workshops, experts, mentors and investors provide.
Clearly, things are not going back to the way they were pre-pandemic overnight. While nearly half of over 100 portfolio companies we have accelerated across offices in Dubai, Cairo and Doha are from the MENA region, in the past we have also attracted a highly diverse pool of global companies from 35+ countries to come to the region and establish a presence here. Figuring a way to best deliver a hybrid model accelerator has been key for keeping up this diversity in 2020 and beyond.
Over the last 3 years we have run 4 accelerator programs in the region - 2 FinTech programs, one in Cairo and one in Dubai, a Smart City program in Dubai and Sports Tech program in Qatar. It has been a particularly fertile ground for growth across these industries with strong tailwinds provided by the growing importance these sectors have on regional government agendas, the strong urge to innovate among the corporate partners, as well as VC fund interest to invest in these sectors.
With 50 new startups added to our portfolio, we have seen not only doubling in size of the portfolio, but also a healthy month on month growth in the total portfolio value. We expect this figure to increase exponentially over the next few years as most of the companies joining the Startupbootcamp MENA portfolio in 2020 were just at the beginning of their journey of raising a seed round. While the number of the deals dropped in MENA in 2020, it was a record year in terms of total funding for MENA startups and we expect the total funding to grow even more in the wider ecosystem as well as reflect in our portfolio. I see so many great opportunities ahead for our portfolio startups in 2021 and at SBC we are excited to be a part of their growth journeys!