Abu Dhabi bets on extending longevity with new biotech hub

The UAE, which created a ministry to promote tolerance and coexistence nearly 10 years ago, is now making longer life expectancy into a national project, tapping a young female biochemist to lead its investment campaign.

Fatma Almulla, an expert in Mideast healthcare finance, was appointed this month to head the Abu Dhabi Investment Office’s new initiative called HELM, which stands for Health, Endurance, Longevity and Medicine. The Mubadala sovereign wealth fund is a strategic partner.

In the new post, Almulla, 31, will seek to develop a cluster of alliances with some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies and healthcare firms – part of an effort to make the UAE a world leader in medical innovation. HELM aims to raise more than $11 billion in investment over the next 20 years.

“The UAE has the right to win in this global marathon,” Almulla said in an interview with The Circuit last week in Abu Dhabi. “In five years, I expect to see five big pharma companies with production facilities established here.”

Before assuming the HELM post, Almulla spent a decade abroad, earning two master’s degrees at the University of Glasgow and a doctorate in biochemical engineering at University College London. For the past two years, she’s worked at GKSD Investment Holding, a Milan, Italy-based consulting firm focused on healthcare and engineering, where she rose to become Vice President and Advisor to the Chairman on business development in the Middle East.

Almulla, who was named in 2023 to the Forbes Middle East “30 Under 30” list that spotlights the region’s upcoming leaders, said HELM will cultivate biotech startups in the UAE and Middle East through funding, mentorship and networking opportunities.

Fostering research in such fields as genomic medicines and advanced therapies through AI-powered diagnostics, Almulla said, should help people in the UAE lead longer and healthier lives.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How would you describe the mission of the new HELM initiative?

The cluster brings together an integrated and powerful ecosystem designed to drive innovation, attract global investments, and position Abu Dhabi as a global leader in life sciences. In this group, we are welcoming global pharma companies across biotech, pharma, MedTech, and digital health.

Not only big pharma companies. We also work with startups such as biotech and health tech ventures. We help them by linking them to our accelerators, such as Hub71, which gives them access to funding, mentorship, and networking opportunities in the Middle East. At its core, the cluster will enable advancements in genomic medicines, advanced therapies, and AI-powered diagnostics. Our niche is clear in terms of longevity and wellness.

Why is this program important for Abu Dhabi, in particular, and for the UAE and the Middle East overall?

The healthcare sector is very important. The size of this market is expected to grow to 93 trillion dirhams ($25.3 trillion) by 2045. Currently, the life sciences market alone is at 7.7 trillion dirhams and will grow to 40 trillion dirhams by 2045.

The UAE has the right to win in this global marathon. It has many advantages. For example, a third of the world’s population is within a four-hour flight from the UAE. More than 90% of global pharma companies have a presence in the UAE. We also have the second-largest national human genome project. Clinical trial approval in the UAE usually takes no more than 28 days, thanks to our streamlined regulators like the Department of Health.

We are helping these companies access the Middle East, Asia, and Africa regions, who are looking to expand in the region. As I mentioned with the market size and growth, there will be twice the demand for healthcare solutions. That means there will be a need for better and quicker therapies, advanced therapies, and genomic solutions.

How much investment can HELM potentially generate?

We expect the cluster will unlock 42 billion dirhams ($11.4 billion) in investments. It will contribute 94 billion dirhams in incremental GDP growth and create around 30,000 new jobs – all by 2045.

Which major institutions are supporting HELM?

Mubadala is one of our strategic partners. They already have a global life sciences investment platform. ADQ also has major investments in life sciences. Being part of the cluster allows us to leverage those assets. We collaborate with them to assess new investments. One of their recent investments was in a manufacturing platform, and now they are exploring bringing parts of that to Abu Dhabi.

We’re working with UAE University, Khalifa University, NYU Abu Dhabi, and Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence. Partnerships with international universities are also in the pipeline. For regulations, we work with the Department of Health and the ADGM. For R&D, we work with Masdar as an innovation center. For infrastructure, we have KIZAD (Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi), Masdar, and the Abu Dhabi Airport Free Zone. For talent development, we partner with universities globally.

We still need to develop specialized programs in areas like biopharma, biotechnology, and genomics. We’re also creating opportunities for postdoctoral and postgraduate studies. Talent development is an integral part of the cluster.  We’ll know more when we announce deals with pharma companies.

In a nutshell, what are your short-term and long-term goals?

Our vision is for 2045. But in five years, I expect to see five big pharma companies with production facilities established here. Building a full substance and formulation facility takes about four to five years. Capital deployment happens immediately.

If we close deals in the next two years, I believe by the five-year mark, we’ll see many of the big pharma companies here. We’re already working with some of them – that will attract others.

Web Summit draws startups to Qatar in search for fresh funds

More than 25,000 participants are milling around Doha this week for Web Summit Qatar as the Gulf state competes with neighboring Saudi Arabia and the UAE to attract promising tech startups.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Qatari Prime Minister, kicked off the four-day extravaganza at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Center on Sunday by announcing that six prominent venture capital firms are opening offices in the country.

The VCs – which include U.S.-based B Capital and Human Capital, and London’s Utopia Capital – are partners in the Qatar Investment Authority’s Fund of Funds program that was set up last year to spur growth of the country’s startup ecosystem.

The QIA said it is evaluating eight more VC firms for inclusion in the program.

“Being a small state like Qatar is similar to being a startup in this exciting digital age, where an entrepreneur with a brilliant idea can change the world,” Sheikh Mohammed said.

Among the headliners at Web Summit are Mozilla CEO Laura Chambers, Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour, B Capital Co-Founder and Co-CEO Eduardo Saverin – a Co-Founder of Facebook – writer Malcolm Gladwell, and actor Will Smith.

Nuwa Capital navigates evolving Mideast investment landscape

Khaled Talhouni, Managing Partner of Nuwa Capital, says the recent proliferation of tech IPOs in the Gulf demonstrates that a “window is opening” for investors on stock exchanges in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and some of their neighbors.

Talhouni, 39, has a broad view of developments in regional finance, having opened offices in both Dubai and Riyadh for the venture capital firm, which manages $100 million in assets.

After attending college at Duke University in the U.S., Talhouni returned to the UAE for a job at Dubai International Capital, where he worked on the region’s first seed capital fund. He directed investments and strategy at twofour54 in Abu Dhabi and went on to become a Managing Partner at Wamda Capital. He started Nuwa in 2020.

Nuwa’s backers include Saudi Arabia’s Al Faisaliah Group, Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co., Jada Fund of Funds and the Dubai Future District Fund. Among its 30 portfolio companies are Calo, a Bahrain-based meal planning start-up; Zest Equity, an online platform for managing venture capital investments; and Raqamyah, a Saudi crowdfunding platform.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are the major trends you see these days among investors in Middle East businesses?

I think with what’s going on in Saudi Arabia with a lot of very successful IPOs having happened in the past 24 months – particularly but not necessarily in tech, but across the board – we are seeing huge interest in participating in late-stage tech or late-stage, pre-IPO types of deals. That is because investors are seeing how there is a quick return on the back of that.

Also in the UAE, there is the Talabat deal coming up soon as well. So IPOs seem to be the hottest topic in town. I would say that is kind of moving in a big way.

One thing you see a lot more are direct deals, a lot more, so you do see people much more interested in going direct, as opposed to funds. You do see an interest in profitability. I would say that’s kind of increasingly of interest.

As we head into 2025, do you see further new companies being founded, or do you see more acquisitions than founding opportunities?

I think a couple of things are going to happen. First, I think funding is going to pick up because a lot of people are coming into some new dry powders. Some new funds are closing so things are moving. Then those who are sitting on the side have some deployment pressure that they need to deploy.

Secondly, I think a lot of early-stage companies, as funding has dried up relative to what it was in 2020-2021, [are going to be acquired]. We are going to see a lot of mid-tier companies and startups start consolidating into larger ones. So there is a lot of consolidation. More “aqua” (acquisition) hires. So bigger tech companies buying up talent or buying companies, or aqua hiring, or merging with companies that are smaller than them, that basically augment their offering, or add to their existing offering. 

 In terms of founding companies,  that trend is secular. So that trend is continuing no matter what. So you see more and more every year, more companies being founded, regardless of what’s going on in the capital market.

Do we foresee a market correction where only the best companies will survive and move on to series A and beyond? 

That’s the natural state of affairs. It should be like that. The unusual period was those couple of years in 2020, 2021, 2022, when everything was getting funded all the time. That’s unusual, but I think the natural [way that things] occur is actually, the majority of companies don’t survive going from Series A to Series B.

We are seeing movement within the IPO space while, at the same time, smaller businesses are struggling. What’s going on in the market? 

There is a slowdown, a little bit of a consumer slowdown, particularly in Saudi a little bit. That’s definitely kind of happening in some small way. I think there’s also some liquidity constraints. So that’s definitely happening overall. I think it is very sector-specific. 

However, consumer spend overall is being stretched. Which is why, on the other hand, companies, in BNPL (Buy-now-pay-later) and consumer credit seem to be doing so well. So they are really growing very, very aggressively. It is a little bit of a tale of specificities depending on which segment you’re in, you’re having a very different reality.

How has the wave of IPOs and exits shaped the current venture capital environment within the region? What do you think is going to happen in the next coming years?

So on the IPO front, it is extremely positive. I don’t know if you remember this, this whole route was not open. You know, as early as three, four years ago, there were no tech IPOs in the region, and there are very few IPOs overall. Right? Like, it was not a very vibrant capital market generally. So I think the fact that this window is opening, and there is demand, and there’s regulatory reform, and there’s opening up, especially on the Tadawul exchange in Saudi but even on the DFM in Dubai and ADX in Abu Dhabi, I think is extremely positive. 

So that’s kind of spurring all kinds of more activity in the space to create validation that you can exit your startup through an IPO, which is typically, if you look at in other developed markets, it’s not the main way companies exit, but it’s not the majority of how startups exit, but it’s where the largest exit has happened. That had not really been open to our region before. And now this opening up really kind of creates some ability, some exit paths for startups at the larger base.

How does Nuwa Capital see the whole startup ecosystem moving forward? What role do you play in this within the region? 

We see that the sovereign system is maturing. We do still think that there is still a huge room for more and more companies, for more and more companies to get funded, and more capital to throw on the startup ecosystem. I think there are probably too many individual VCs. So I think it’s a bit fragmented, and I can see that the market is also consolidating and or kind of getting a bit more concentrated, with the larger firms and the more established firms getting disproportionate amounts of the capital in the long run.

As for us, we are very keen on continuing on our mission, which is to kind of really invest in early-stage companies, impact the very best founders, and grow our business on the back of that.  We have some companies that are beginning to mature within our portfolio. So we are hoping to position for exit in the coming two to three years. But then we also have a very young portfolio as well, so we will see how that kind of evolves over the coming years.

Abu Dhabi ranked MENA’s top ecosystem for nurturing startups

From developing new permutations for online payment to addressing food security and climate change, Abu Dhabi has turned into the region’s most fertile greenhouse for tech startups.

A new report by San Francisco-based Startup Genome and the Global Entrepreneurship Network ratifies the phenomenon that has become evident in a daily flow of product and funding announcements from fledgling companies in the UAE capital.

The Global Startup Ecosystem Report identifies Abu Dhabi as the fastest-growing startup ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa region, measuring a 28% growth rate between July 2021 and December 2023.

The Silicon Valley data tracker also highlights key players in Abu Dhabi that are nurturing the startup cradle, including Mubadala, ADQ, the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO), startAD, and the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development.

Collaborations with the sovereign wealth funds and other UAE institutions have facilitated a soft-landing for startups in Abu Dhabi from around the world, providing them with access to capital and commercial opportunities, the report says. As a result, Abu Dhabi’s Hub71 community now hosts more than 315 startups that have collectively raised $1.5 billion, the report says.

The GSER, analyzes data from over 4.5 million companies across more than 300 entrepreneurial innovation ecosystems. Abu Dhabi’s ranking jumped 15 spots compared to the previous year, based on $284 million in total early-stage funding and $1.06 billion in total venture capital funding from 2019 to 2023.

Weekly Circuit: Israeli startups shrug off Beyond Meat woes + Lebanon, Israel agree on gas

👋 Good Wednesday morning in the Middle East!

Tel Aviv prides itself as a bastion of vegan cuisine, so it’s not so surprising that the city has spawned a sizable collection of food-tech startups producing plant-based substitutes for meat. As The Circuit finds this week, they’re not daunted by the troubles of industry leader Beyond Meat, which has lost more than 90% of its stock market value over the past three years. Besides companies that are developing non-meat alternatives to farm-grown livestock, we take a look at those pioneering so-called cultivated meat, which is lab-grown from the cells of animals and doesn’t involve their slaughter.

Now that Lebanon and Israel have accepted a U.S.-mediated agreement to resolve their conflict over drilling rights to offshore gas reserves in the Mediterranean, both countries are assessing the potential for profit. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said yesterday he expects pumping gas from the Karish field to “inject billions” into the economy when it’s exported to a fuel-starved Europe. Lebanon, on the other hand, won’t benefit for at least five or six years from the Qana field as French energy giant Total and Italy’s Eni search for underwater gas deposits.

Oil prices topped the agenda at a meeting in St. Petersburg yesterday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE president. The Russian leader called attention to Emirati support for last week’s decision by the OPEC+ group to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day. Now the question arises whether the UAE will also feel the wrath of the Biden administration, which said the U.S. will “reevaluate” the already rocky U.S.-Saudi relationship in light of the oil cut it tried to head off.

Abu Dhabi was in hoops heaven last week as the NBA brought preseason play to the UAE capital. Not hard to spot was 7-foot-1 former superstar Shaquille O’Neal, who shot baskets on an outdoor court near the Etihad Arena, where the Atlanta Hawks swept the two-game series with the Milwaukee Bucks.

Welcome to The Weekly Circuit, where we cover the Middle East through a business and cultural lens. Read on for the stories, deals and players at the top of the news. Please send comments and story tips to [email protected].

The next issue of the The Weekly Circuit will appear Wednesday, Oct. 19, as the holiday season wraps up. The newsletter will return afterwards to its regular publishing schedule on Mondays.

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FUTURE OF FOOD

Eager Israeli food startups shrug off Beyond Meat’s market woes

When Beyond Meat Inc. went public in May 2019, investor excitement over the sizzle of its plant-based burgers sent the stock soaring, giving the California-based company a market value of almost $14 billion. Three years later, the shares have fallen more than 90%, fueling concern about whether consumer demand for meat alternatives will live up to the expectations they’ve generated, Linda Gradstein reports for The Circuit.

Cultivated meat: In Israel, home to a thriving vegan culinary culture and more than 400 food-tech startups, the prevailing outlook is optimistic. While several Israeli companies are producing plant-based versions of beef, chicken and fish – as well as eggs and dairy products – another frontier of so-called cultivated meat, which is made from lab-grown animal cells, is gaining traction. “Plant-based meat as it is today won’t get people to stop eating meat,” Guy Nevo Michrowski, CEO of Israel’s ProFuse Technology, told The Circuit. “The only thing that will get them to switch is something that really tastes like meat, and that is what is already happening.”

Raising funds: ProFuse raised $2.5 million last month in a funding round led by New York’s Green Circle. Investors included Tnuva, one of Israel’s top two food producers; beverage-maker Tempo; OurCrowd, a Jerusalem-based platform for crowdfunded venture capital investment; and Newport Beach, Calif.-based Finistere Ventures.

Changing calculus: ProFuse’s technology, which nurtures the cells in a nourishing liquid, was developed over six years of research at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science. The process can potentially enable the large-scale manufacture of meat in bioreactors at a cost similar to producing farm-grown beef, chicken and pork, Stu Strumwasser, managing director of Green Circle, said last month after the new investment was announced. ProFuse’s method “may substantially accelerate that process and thus fundamentally change the calculus for the commercialization of lab-grown meat,” he said.

Lab-grown steak: Another Israeli company working on cultivated meat is Aleph Farms, which gained fame for producing the world’s first lab-grown steak. With actor Leonardo DiCaprio among its investors, Aleph Farms raised $105 million last year to bring its steaks to market by 2023. The funding round was led by DisruptAD, the venture capital platform of the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ, and the Growth Fund of Greenwich, Conn.-based L Catterton, the largest global consumer-focused private equity firm.

Gulf interest: The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which import the vast majority of their food, have been developing partnerships with Israeli food-tech companies since the 2020 Abraham Accords normalized relations between Israel and the two Gulf states. Aleph Farms and DisruptAD have discussed building a manufacturing facility in Abu Dhabi to produce cultivated meat products and sell them across the Gulf.

Read the full story here.

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