Founders across the ecosystem are finding that the region’s appetite for new technology—from cybersecurity to cloud computing—is picking up, burnishing the attractiveness of the market. Companies like Protectt, Kluisz.ai, Doqfy, Ringg.ai and others are looking to enter the Middle East first, before setting sail to larger markets like the US.
“We will be focusing on the Indian and Middle East markets first. They’re very large and fast-growing markets,” Abhinav Sinha, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of private cloud computing company Kluisz.ai, said. However, he admitted that while the company’s primary focus is the Indian market for now, the US could work out quicker than expected.
The company raised $9.6 million in a seed round in July this year from RTP Global, with participation from Unicorn India Ventures, Blume Founders Fund, Climber Capital and a few angel investors including Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal.
Similarly, Protectt.ai, a cybersecurity company for apps, raised $8.7 million in a Series A round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The company caters mostly to sectors like banking, finance and stock exchanges. What makes the region attractive to Protectt is that there are now “more than 1,000″ fintech companies in the Middle East and North Africa region, according to a report from McKinsey & Co.
The company’s co-founder and CEO, Manish Mimani, said, “The region’s fast-growing banking and fintech ecosystem makes it a natural choice for us. It has strong potential for large enterprise deals from players in the market.” Protectt set up offices in Dubai for its expansion into the region at the end of March. While the company is targeting the US as well, it sees the Middle East as its growth hub and a long-term market.
Doqfy, a cloud-based contract management software company, has its bases in India and in Dubai. The company has so far raised $1.9 million in seed funding from Silverneedle Ventures, Pentathlon Ventures and LetsVenture. “If we explore only the US, there’s only federal law-based contracts there. But in the Dubai market, there’s options for European law, British and even US. Several law firms have cropped up there to cater to high-value transactions like real estate and other industries,” said Aditya Pandranki, founder and CEO of Doqfy. The company began taking on clients from the region in January this year.
Doqfy’s approach is to tap one large conglomerate which caters to several industries, thereby offering the company multiple use cases for its software as well as market visibility. While most of its revenue continues to be generated by its Indian clients, Pandranki said its Middle East business will begin generating revenue by the end of the current fiscal year. “After the pandemic, technology adoption has become relevant in markets in Asia Pacific and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.”
Similarly, voice assistant artificial intelligence (AI) company Ringg.ai, which raised $1 million in seed money from Capital 2B this year, is also targeting the Mena region as its first international market. Esports gaming platform Gamerji, which had raised $1.1 million in seed from Unicorn India Ventures in 2022, has found a large market for its offerings in MENA, with over 70-80% of its revenues coming from there.
Making a lucrative market
Software-as-a-service startups are generally the first to enter international markets on account of their lower customer acquisition costs, higher scalability and easier customization of their products, according to a report by Meta and global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal, released in June.
In this regard, the UAE has been a destination for a lot of Indian startups’ first office in the MENA region. In fact, the report says that among the top five markets that Indian startups open international operations in, the UAE ranks second, with the US holding the top rank.
“For early-stage founders, it makes sense to come to the region, from all angles. From potential introductions to new customers to raising money, but more importantly, future-proofing,” said Sudarshan Pareek, senior vice-president and head of CE Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of UAE-based conglomerate Crescent Enterprises. “There’s some brand recognition already built into the market here, which can be leveraged in a low-risk environment without putting too much capital investment and build a business.”
What’s more, government policies in the region, especially in the UAE, has been instrumental in attracting Indian startups to the region.
India has a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) with the UAE, which came into force in 2022. There’s also the UAE-India Start-up Series, a part of the CEPA, which saw 10,000 Indian startups apply to get access to the programme. Under the programme, 20 companies will be selected which will receive help for expansion in the UAE.
Drying investments from the region
Indian startups targeting the region as a market is an unexpected surprise, primarily because investments from the region into the Indian market have shrunk dramatically.
Investments flowing from the Middle East into India topped out at $4.1 billion across 39 deals in 2021, according to data from Venture Intelligence. Since then, however, they’ve declined steadily. In 2022, overall investment stood at $3.9 billion, dropping to $692 million in 2023, before declining further in 2024 to $201 million. So far this year, firms have invested only $72 million across just five deals in India.
Of the five large investments from the region between 2020 and 2025, three were led by the Qatar Investment Authority. The sovereign wealth fund injected $1.5 billion in 2022 in investment platform Bodhi Tree, which is led by James Murdoch and Uday Shankar. It also invested a total of $1.5 billion in now-listed food delivery company Swiggy between 2021 and 2022. Beleaguered edtech company Byju’s also saw a $1.4 billion investment from Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Co., the sovereign wealth fund of the UAE.
