Dubai redoubles efforts to attract international digital start-ups
Dubai has launched a new initiative to help attract digital start-ups to the emirate as the UAE seeks to double the contribution of the tech sector to its gross domestic product over the next decade.
The Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy initiative, which will be launched in September, will offer a set of incentives for digital start-ups in partnership with a number of private sector and government entities, according to Omar Al Olama, Minister of State for the Digital Economy, AI and Remote Working Applications.
Among the benefits will be discounts on commercial offices to set up a company, discounts on technology and savings on infrastructure such as connectivity and data-hosting, he said.
The new platform will be a ‘one-stop shop’ for licensing services, banking facilities, office space, cloud services and other requirements for digital companies, Al Olama said.
He added that the new ‘holistic platform’ will combine all the incentives for new and existing digital economy start-ups in Dubai under one umbrella.
“What we’ve seen is there are a lot of incentives out there but they’re very sporadic, they’re all over the place, so we want to unify them all under one platform,” he said.
“We want to ensure that Dubai is the most appealing and most attractive environment for new digital companies that are setting up and also expanding in the region.”
Dubai Chamber signed initial agreements with partners including Telr, Dubai CommerCity, Safexpay and the UAE’s biggest telecoms operator, Etisalat by e&.
More partners will join the scheme as it develops, with the minister saying that a “big list” of companies and institutions have expressed interest in joining the initiative as partners, the minister said.
In 2022, the UAE announced its Digital Economy Strategy, designed to increase the contribution of the tech sector to 20% of GDP over the next 10 years, up from 9.7% in 2022, as it seeks to leverage cutting-edge technologies and attract high-skilled talent.
It also set a target to attract 300 digital start-ups to the emirate by 2024. The Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy has attracted 30 digital start-ups during the first quarter of 2023, it said recently.
The new initiative will include company-based and employee-based incentives to attract more local and international digital start-ups to operate in the emirate, the minister said.
“Any [digital] company that wants to come and set up in Dubai and any [digital] company that is currently based in Dubai can avail of that,” Al Olama said, adding that this applies to companies both in free zones and the mainland.
Mohammad Ali Rashed Lootah, president and chief executive of Dubai Chambers, said the scale of the new initiative had made it attractive to prospective partners. He said: “[When] we communicated with the partners that we have a specific plan to grow the sector and we noticed that the majority of partners, when they understand the scope of the project, they tend to give better packages.”
Details of the packages offered by each of the partners will be announced when the initiative is launched in September, he added.
The latest initiative is one of several recent ones designed to attract more digital companies to the country.
In 2021, Dubai launched a Dh1 billion ($272.3 million) Future District Fund to support technology companies and encourage them to list on the emirate’s stock market. The fund has set a $1 billion target for assets under management by the end of 2024, a fourfold increase since it was established to invest in technology start-ups.
In 2021, the UAE unveiled the Entrepreneurial Nation initiative, which aims to make the country home to 20 unicorns by 2031, as well as attract and expand small and medium-sized enterprises.
Summit to be held in October
Dubai Chamber is also organising the Expand North Star summit, an event dedicated to connecting start-ups with investors. It will be held in Dubai from October 15 to 18 and is expected to attract more than 1,400 exhibitors and 1,000 investors.
