Founders often have incredible ideas. That’s the easy part. Once a founder starts building out their idea, they often rely on friend and family money. This is a process that is called “bootstrapping”. However, the founder(s) will soon need a larger amount of money as their start-up grows and as costs increase. The period between when boostrapping money is not enough and raising funds is often called “the valley of death”, and is one of the most common reasons start-ups fail. In this article, we’ll go over different options Palestinian entrepreneurs have when to raise money.
Ibtiktar, meaning innovation in Arabic, is a Palestinian-owned investment fund focused on helping disruptive Palestinian entrepreneurs carry out their vision. What’s special about Ibtikar is that it was build for Palestinians, by Palestinians. Hashim Shawa, the anchor investor in the Fund and chairman of the Bank of Palestine, says that “80 percent of the fund’s investors were Palestinian and either living in Palestine or abroad.”
Ibtikar invests in early stage start-ups but can also follow founders all the way to series A funding. Their portofolio (companies they’ve already invested in) includes top-notch Palestinian start-ups such as Gamiphy, Receet, and Tawazon.
Our goal is to maximize return for our investors by helping high-potential Palestinian companies answer regional and global needs. We do this through direct support from our management team and select group of advisors, and leverage the strong network of our investors and partners for the benefit of each of our portfolio companies. — Ibitkar Fund
If you’re interested in getting an investment from Ibtikar, make sure to read their investment guidelines here. From there, you can email them at info@ibtikarfund.com
Bonus: They also have a very useful document about how to incorporate a company in Palestine which you can access right here.
2. Sadara
Sadara Ventures is the “first venture capital firm targeting the Palestinian tech sector, joining forces with exceptional entrepreneurs to power innovation, and help build the first wave of world-class, high-growth, tech companies in Palestine.” Sadara focuses on early-stage start-ups, so feel free to contact them even if you aren’t fully established yet.
Sadara was “launched in 2011 by Saed Nashef, a Palestinian-American who was a software engineer at Microsoft before setting up his own companies, and Yadin Kaufmann, an Israeli-American who helped pioneer venture capital in Israel, Sadara raised $30 million for its first fund and plans to invest it over 10 years.”
We invest in founders that focus on execution. We believe we’re seeing a shift in what technology can do for the everyday person and we believe that companies that create value will be the ones that will be able to execute better. — Saed Nashef, Founding Partner at Sadara Ventures
Sadara’s portfolio includes some of the most promising Palestinian start-ups including Yamsafer, and Souktel. Sadara is itself funded by big organizations such as the Google Foundation and the European Union.
If you want more information about Sadara visit their website here, or contact them at info@sadaravc.com
3. IPSD
IPSD stands for Innovative Private Sector Development. It is an initiative funded in part by the World Bank and which “aims to empower the Palestinian economy through developing the private sector, with a focus on entrepreneurs, startups, early-stage enterprises and SMEs.” One of the organization’s stated purpose is also to build an “outsourcing hub” in Gaza, which fits well with Gaza’s highly educated and technologically skilled population (seen in initiatives such as Gaza Sky Geeks)
IPSD offers different types of grant for Palestinian entrepreneurs.
- Pre-investment grants: These grants go up to $30,000 and allow entrepreneurs to get their start-up “investor ready” to then raise a significantly bigger amount.
- Co-investment grants: These grants are given alongside an investment, allowing the entrepreneur to have more cash than the investment alone and have more “runway” as they build their product.
IPSD also differentiates their grants into two categories.
- Standard Open Grants: Operates on a first come, first served basis and available to start-ups and companies from all sectors
- Targeted Grants: Grants specific to certain sectors such as social entreprise, women-run businesses, research&development, outsourcing support, sector specific grants.
The IPSD is relatively new and we definitely recommend you check it out. Contact them either directly through their website, Facebook, or Linkedin.
Who are we?
GrowHome is a platform connecting diasporas to entrepreneurs back home. The problem we’re trying to solve is twofold: on one hand, diasporas often gain professional and financial resources abroad which they want to share with people back home, but they have no easy way to do so. On the other hand, entrepreneurs in emerging countries have incredible talent, but lack access to business opportunities. On GrowHome, diasporas can mentor, collaborate and fund entrepreneurs from their home countries. Through the social media interface, diasporas can do what we call “impact tracking” by seeing updates from the entrepreneurs they help directly on their feed.
We are launching our BETA product in Jordan and Palestine. Visit our website www.growhome.app and sign up for our BETA waiting list, either as a diaspora or an entrepreneur.
To get updated on our progress, follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Youtube.
Listen to our podcasts on Spotify.
