[ad_1]
One of Dubai’s latest startup community initiatives, launched on May 4 as Falcon Network Pitch Day, received over $450,000 in angel investment for six startups this week: WorkAround, Caravan, Aion Sigma, Saaya Health, Teacherly and virtuali technology.
The path to this investment was largely due to the outreach work of Dr. Sayd Farook, who was part of the founding team of Falcon Network and Goodforce Labs, a Dubai accelerator focused on social impact startups . In addition to reaching out to angel investors in the Middle East and Asia and inviting 45 of them to join the Falcon Network, Dr. Farook and his team also invited high-impact early-stage startups to apply for funding opportunities in late 2018.
Dr. Farook, who is also active in initiatives such as the Dubai Future Foundation and its affiliate Emirates Towers 2071, recently commented on the Falcon Network process.
“We are delighted with the success of the first round – more than 223 startups from 46 different countries submitted applications for funding. Of the 13 shortlisted companies, we are delighted that Aion Sigma, Caravan, Teacherly, Virtual i Technologies , WorkAround and Saaya Health received investment. These exciting businesses will not only benefit from financial capital, but also the strategic expertise that our angel investors will provide to accelerate their growth potential.”
Launched in October 2018 during the Global Islamic Economic Summit in Dubai, Falcon Network is already planning its next funding round: applications will open in November 2019.
smart money
The founders of these six startups expressed their gratitude to angel investors, including several who have led successful startups, for their investment and valuable advice.
“We are delighted to have Falcon Network as an investor supporting us in realizing our vision.” said Wafaa Abbash, CEO and co-founder of WorkAround, a startup that provides a scalable data labeling and verification platform for enterprises. “We envision a world where talent knows no borders, opportunity requires no status, and work is fairly compensated,” said Arbash. Artificial intelligence and machine learning applications powered by skilled displaced people.
Caravan co-founder and CEO Syed Karim said Falcon Network’s support comes as his UAE-based sustainable transportation startup finds its stride after a rocky road.
“Caravan is a value-added aggregator of private buses in the UAE with a mission to help employees find the best bus for their work commute. Caravan’s vision is to help improve the quality of the industry so that more people are willing to consider it for their work commute. Our journey has been difficult so far, from operator onboarding to marketing challenges, but we made great progress earlier this year and are starting to see healthy, sustainable growth rates,” said Karim.
“With the help of Wamda Capital and Falcon Network investors, we are very ambitious and confident about Caravan’s future, and we hope to make a difference in the transportation field.
Tajawal co-founder and former CEO Muhammad Chbib, one of more than 45 angel investors in Falcon Network, recently launched a startup called Manal.com, a travel platform for customized travel .
Chbib said joining Falcon Network as an angel investor was an opportunity for him to provide guidance to founders based on his experience as a serial entrepreneur.
“We have successfully assembled a group of individuals who have committed to contribute at least $50,000 each, which will be used as seed investments in promising start-up projects. The guidance of Falcon Angel investors will not only provide funding, but also aim to support and accelerate investment portfolio company development,” Chbib said.
“With the help of the strong network behind Falcon, we will certainly be able to secure additional rounds of funding and subsequently help create some successful businesses.”
Post views: 19,806
[ad_2]
Source link