Bologna, Italy-based B2B platform GELLIFY has recently announced that it is projecting the launch of a €20 million (around $24.3 million) fund to invest in startups in Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region. The news flashed first on Wamda.
GELLIFY has expanded its presence to Dubai in order to make the Middle East startup ecosystem more reachable. The company focuses on B2B software as a service (SaaS) startups in healthcare, wellbeing, education, culture, wealth and finance, environment and sustainability, hospitality and entertainment.
Speaking of the development, Massimo Cannizzo, CEO & Co-founder of GELLIFY Middle East, said,
“We are scouting startups to start investing with our own funds and mid next year we will also open a fund to attract other investors from Europe. There is a fragmentation in the innovation ecosystem in the Middle East, capital is available but the ability to connect to that capital is difficult,”
According to the statement, GELLIFY already has an €80 million fund in Europe and is keen to bring its European portfolio of startups to the Middle East to build up the ecosystem. It is also planning to export solutions from the Middle East to the rest of the world.
Sharing the core benefit of the GELLIFY fund, Cannizzo further added,
“The weakest part of the bridge of all these [regional] ecosystems is exporting to the rest of the world. We import a lot, but if we don’t export our startups from the Middle East to the rest of the world, we will never make another unicorn. B2C requires a lot of consumers to grow, but in B2B when you have a nice solution it is easier to sell it globally.”
