Top 50 Digital Media Startup Investors in Middle East in May 2025

We are a leading venture capital firm in Dubai, UAE, focused on supporting entrepreneurs in the MENA region at the seed- and early-stage building great companies.

We're a team of former serial founders managing over $1.25B across a number of funds, with offices in Tel Aviv, London, and New York.

lool is a Tel-Aviv based venture capital fund focused on seed and pre-seed investments

Pico Venture Partners invests in visionary Israeli entrepreneurs building future-defining technologies. We seek the leaders who are relentless in their quest to disrupt existing markets, industries, business processes, and consumer experiences.

SeedIL Ventures is a seed stage investment fund focusing on Israeli related companies in any sector except medtech/biotech and heavy Hardware. After investment, SeedIL is committed to ensuring that portfolio companies reach their full potential by providing on-going coaching and connections through its extensive network, including the Limitedpartner's connections and intelligence.

Rami Lipman is an angel investor.

Family Office

twozero Ventures provides venture investing to technology-driven and disruptive startups in sports, media, and entertainment.

TechOne VC is a venture capital firm. It invests in innovative tech startups founded by visionary entrepreneurs solving global problems, to deliver superior returns for our investors.

Eilon Tirosh is a Startup Helper at SpearHealth. He attended Tel Aviv University.

MEVP is a Middle East-focused venture capital firm that invests in the early and growth stages of innovative tech companies run by talented entrepreneurs in the Middle East with a focus on the GCC and Levant countries. With a team of 20 VC professionals across offices in Dubai, Beirut, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh, MEVP manages 5 regional funds with more than USD 260 million in Assets Under Management. MEVP is the largest and most established VC firm in the region, with clear cross border investment appetite.

Insight Partners is a global software investor partnering with high-growth technology, software, and Internet startup and ScaleUp companies.

Kaedan Capital is a private investment group active for over 15 years. We are entrepreneur centric investors with co-founder mentality, focused on Israeli related, seed to early stage ventures in diverse technology areas.

We partner with exceptional founders building breakthrough companies and creating scalable impact in MENA region

Faith Capital is a venture capital firm investing in talented MENA founders building long-term value by developing sound operations at home and abroad.A Kuwait based venture capital fund owned and managed by individuals with proven business experience and success in the GCC.The principal focus of Faith Capital is on e-commerce businesses,based in the region, which have high growth potential for the future.

Kerem Tokcan

A fund investing in the blockchain, crypto & web3 ecosystem as well as disruptive technology. Offices in London & New York.

Arzan Venture Capital (Arzan VC) is a Kuwait-born VC firm that has been investing in startups with a MENA angle since 2014, making it one of the earliest VC firms in the region. Arzan VC's portfolio includes 30+ startups. The firm invests in young, fast-growing and innovative tech teams and it remains committed to building long-lastingrelationships with the region’s most talented entrepreneurs at an early stage.

Firat Isbecer is an entrepreneur and a seed investor. His first venture Pozitron, a mobile software company focusing on digital banking, commerce and mobile payments, became one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies in Europe with clients across the globe. After multi years of growth and a successful international expansion, Pozitronwas acquired by London-based fin-tech star Monitise plc in 2014.After the acquisition, he joined Monitise and oversaw the company’s regional operations as the MEA Managing Director. Monitise MEA quickly became one of the most profitable business units of Monitise Group. In 2017, Monitise Group was fully acquired by the US-based, Fiserv Inc, one of the world's largest fin-tech companies with more than 50,000 employees.Shortly after the acquisition, he left Fiserv and founded his newest venture, Commencis. Commencis helps leading brands grow and scale in digital, powered by it’s Big Data, Analytics and Cloud products.In September 2019, Commencis expanded to Berlin, Germany by announcing finbyte, a joint-venture in fintech solutions. Besides Commencis, he is also an active seed investor. Member of Galata Business Angels, Turkey’s first angel investor group.After graduating from Robert College in Istanbul, Firat received his Bachelor’s Degree from Galatasaray University, and his Master’s Degree from a joint programme by Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

Northzone is a multi-stage venture capital fund that seeks to invest in the healthcare, semiconductors, software, hardware, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and gaming industries.

Bonnier Capital is the investment division of the Bonnier Group. Since 2016, we invest in promising companies in structurally growing industries and have become a reliant investment partner to companies of various sizes.

An Israeli investment family fund that targets to support innovative entrepreneurs and assist them in building great global companies.

Deniz Devrim Cengiz

The Hyundai Motor Company is a South Korean multinational automotive manufacturer. It has various vehicle lineups, brand vision, and global campaigns like clean mobility, sustainability, art, and sports partnership.The company was founded in 1967 and, along with its 32.8% owned subsidiary, Kia Motors, together comprise the Hyundai Motor Group,which is the world's fifth-largest automaker based on annual vehicle sales in 2012. In 2008, Hyundai Motor (without Kia) was ranked as the eighth largest automaker. As of 2012, the company sold over 4.4 million vehicles worldwide in that year, and together with Kia total sales were 7.12 million.

Lightbank VC is a $700M AUM venture fund that invests in early-stage vertically focused AI, consumer, enterprise, healthcare, crypto, fintech and climate companies. It focuses on pre-seed, seed and Series A opportunities where they write initial checks between $250k - $5m. They have invested in over 150 companies such as Tempus, Udemy, Fiverr(NYSE: FVRR), Sprout Social (NYSE: SPRT), Boom Supersonic, Tastytrade (acq. $1B+), Extend, Attain, Paytient and Expel.

Maverick Carter is the Founder and CEO of SpringHill Entertainment and it's premier digital media company UNINTERRUPTED, oversees the expanding entertainment companies’ overall strategic direction, spearheads their new business and content development partnerships, and guides their growing multi-platform global distribution efforts. Inaddition, Carter plays a vital role in all project, partner, and talent developments, leveraging key relationships and providing unique insight to create original, exclusive, and authentic content across a variety of mediums. With a steadily expanding portfolio of innovative projects, Carter has quickly become an influential figure in the media and entertainment industry. One of SpringHill Entertainment’s fastest-growing ventures is UNINTERRUPTED, the multimedia content network created by Carter and James in 2015 that provides unique personalities in sports and entertainment the platform to develop and amplify their stories. Since its debut, UNINTERRUPTED has forged partnerships with a growing list of industry-leading companies including Warner Bros. Entertainment, Facebook, and Verizon to create and distribute its unique, creative and captivating content globally across multiple platforms with a particular focus on mobile, web, and social distribution streams.

Business entrepreneur and investor in startups. For the past 20 years developer of new initiatives and ideas. CEO, Chairman of companies, political strategist and advertising expert. Lead public opinion campaigns for people and issues from breast cancer, to national elections to the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Founding Partner atmybulb.vcOwner of the Gaon Holding Group; Executive Director in the group's companies, focusing on development and marketing products and services for the global Water Smart Grid. Member of the AquaAgro Fund Investment committee, a 50 Million dollar Israeli Venture Capital Fund, focused only on developing innovative water and agriculture technologies, as well as other innovative clean technologies.

Saga VC is a venture capital firm.

At dentsu, innovation is our strength, and your growth is our mission. We help you keep up with technological changes in the digital economy.

Viola Credit is a global alternative asset manager that provides innovative, flexible, and tailored credit solutions to support the growth of global technology companies. Its two main credit offerings are Growth Lending and Asset-Backed Lending. With over 22 years of experience, Viola Credit currently manages more than $1.8B in various businessesacross the U.S., Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand at multiple stages of growth. It is part of the Viola Group, a leading technology-focused investment group with over $5.5B in assets under management (AUM).

Philippe Guez

Faruk Eczacıbaşı - Deputy Vice President of Eczacıbaşı @ KWORKS Koç University Entrepreneurship Research Center

Viola Growth is an Israeli-based technology growth capital fund, focusing on investing in global companies at expansion phase.

Legziel Famliy

We are a proprietary investment firm focused on digital assets and blockchain technology, primarily focused on the Elrond Ecosystem.

Eric Elalouf

Rauf Cem Erkli

Invest in High-Growth Startups

Technion Seed is a seed-stage investment firm, owned jointly by four top-tier Venture Capital funds – Vertex Venture Capital, Battery Ventures (US-based), SCP-Vitalife and ProSeed – and the Technion Research & Development Foundation. Through Technion Seed, these funds invest in high market potential technological ideas and ventures, thatare still at an early stage and with very high uncertainty. The investment in such ventures – initially up to about $1,000,000 – is made both directly by the funds and indirectly through Technion Seed. The purpose of the initial investment is to enable the entrepreneurs to prove the viability of their idea. Success in the initial phase will then lead to a large round of financing by the funds, for continued growth of the venture. Technion Seed and its owners invest in a wide variety of areas, including communications, IT, internet, medical devices, renewable energy, new materials and more.

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Sherpa InnoVentures is an innovation-focused investment fund that invest in highly innovative technological companies to deliver value to its investors and to portfolio companies. Sherpa InnoVentures invests directly in internet and other information and communication technologies and non-pharma life sciences. The company is committed to personallyescort each portfolio company and to work closely with each company’s management team according to the company's specific needs. Sherpa InnoVentures' approach to fund management is developed to add value to both investors and portfolio companies by applying unique innovation tools at all stages and effecting personal working relationships between all parties involved. The company uses a structured approach for identifying and implementing innovation.Sherpa InnoVentures is headquartered in Israel.

Kerim Kotan

Yariv Gilat is a Tectona

TPY Capital is a Tel Aviv based early state VC, investing in some of Israel’s most talented entrepreneurs. They are active investors who typically lead rounds in the areas we invest in, which include data and analytics, digitization and human augmentation, fintech, and frontier tech such as quantum computing.

consortium

Jimmy Iovine is a figure in the music industry and a forward-thinking visionary, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy, the Iovine and Young Center, Interscope Records, and Beats Electronics (Beats by Dre).Jimmy’s influential career began in the 1970s at Record Plant in New YorkCity. Early on, Jimmy was a recording engineer for the likes of John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen before becoming a recording producer for Patti Smith, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Stevie Nicks, Dire Straits, The Pretenders, Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, and U2.Jimmy co-founded Interscope Records in 1990 with Ted Field and others, launching rap, pop, and rock artists such as future business partner Andre “Dr. Dre” Young, Nine Inch Nails, No Doubt, The Black Eyed Peas, Eminem, and Lady Gaga into international stardom. At Interscope Records, Jimmy put artists and their ideas first and empowered those artists to take their careers into their own hands.In 2006, Jimmy and hip-hop producer and trailblazer Dr. Dre co-founded Beats by Dre, a leading, high-performance headphone, earbud, and speaker company. Thanks to the stylish and sleekly designed headphones, and its expansion into smartphones and car audio systems, Beats by Dre secured the No. 1 spot in the billion-dollar-plus premium headphones industry. In early 2014, Jimmy and Dr. Dre expanded the Beats brand into the digital music space with Beats Music — the first streaming music service delivering contextually and culturally relevant playlists personalized for each user. Apple, Inc. acquired Beats by Dre and Beats Music in late 2014.During their time at Beats, Jimmy and Dr. Dre gained important insight into an educational divide that existed between the arts and technology. Witnessing this divide inspired them to provide the resources to launch a school offering an interdisciplinary curriculum where technology meets creativity rather than the two being siloed. With a $70 million donation in 2013, Jimmy and Dr. Dre endowed the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.The Academy — which opened its doors in 2014 — spearheads the careers of aspiring technologists, entrepreneurs, designers, and innovators hoping to drive societal change. The Academy provides an integrated learning framework, with undergraduate and graduate degrees focused on technology, communication, entrepreneurship, the liberal arts, and human-centered design. Looking to extend the Academy’s curriculum to high school students across the U.S., Jimmy and Dr. Dre co-founded the Iovine and Young Center (IYC), which is built on an interdisciplinary secondary education model that focuses on critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and real-world, project-based opportunities. Students learn skills centered around entrepreneurship, technology, and design, which are critical to the 21st-century collegiate landscape and workforce. The first IYC opened its doors in Los Angeles in 2022. Another location — at Frederick Douglass High School in Atlanta — opened in August 2024. A second California location, this one in Inglewood, is set to open in the fall of 2025.Jimmy is a board member for several companies and organizations, including Live Nation Entertainment, XQ Institute, Complex (or Complex NTWRK), Bizaar Studios, and Rosewood Creative. He received a Wall Street Journal Innovator Award in 2014 and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the Ahmet Ertegun Award in 2022.Jimmy is an investor in Bizaar Studios and Gin & Juice By Dre and Snoop, a canned cocktail and ultra-premium spirits brand.Follow Jimmy Iovine on Instagram (@jimmyiovine) and X (@jimmyiovine_), and subscribe to his YouTube (@jimmyiovine_).

Saned Partners is an independently managed Venture Capital fund, aiming to nurture early-stage companies in the MENA region into growth and profitability.Their mission is to partner with entrepreneurs and to provide them with the means and resources to turn their projects into established, best-in-class businesses that offer exceptional all-aroundvalue to stakeholders.Saned’s vision is to serve as a catalyst for economic and social development in the region, by providing entrepreneurs with the opportunity to capitalize on their ambition and ideas.

Paul Wachter has served as a member of our board of directors since August 2015. Since 1997, Wachter has been the Founder and CEO of financial and asset management advisory firm Main Street Advisors in Los Angeles. Prior to forming Main Street Advisors, from 1993 to 1997, Wachter was Managing Director of Schroder & Co. Incorporated, aninvestment banking and asset management company. He has also served on the board of directors of Time Warner Inc., a publicly-traded media company, since 2010 and the board of directors of Avalanche Biotechnologies, Inc., a publicly-traded biopharmaceutical company, since 2014. Wachter has served as a Regent on the University of California Board of Regents since 2004. Wachter brings financial expertise and general business experience to our board of directors and his experience as a director of public companies provides our board of directors with valuable insights to assist in achieving our goals.

Raz Group empowers entrepreneurs and helps them transform their passions into value-adding companies.

Fady Hannah-Shmouni, MD ABIM FRCPC is an Iraqi-Canadian physician-entrepreneur who specializes in endocrinology, hypertension and genetics. He is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia, and an early-stage investor and advisor with over 10 years of clinical and business experience. He has conducted extensive researchin the field of hormones and genetics at America’s research hospital, the National Institutes of Health, and co-founded and financed several startup companies in the fintech, blockchain and healthcare sectors. Business:Fady is the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of FHS Capital (fhscapital.io), a privately held early-stage investment fund focusing on real estate, express car wash services, wellness and digital assets. He serves as a strategic advisor and consultant on several healthTech and blockchain companies, focusing on strategic planning, operational skills, business support, and financing. He led several seed financing rounds, including; Ovenue Inc. (ovenue.com), a no-code AI and blockchain Platform-as-a-Service for real-world asset valuation and tokenization; Flyby (flyby.global), a technology platform connecting last mile delivery with digital out of home advertising; and Fluus (fluus.com), a web3 ramping solution. Medicine:Fady completed clinical training in internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine; adult endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at the National Institutes of Health; and clinical biochemical genetics at the University of Toronto. He is board-certified in internal medicine and endocrinology by the American Board of Internal Medicine and Royal College of Physician and Surgeons of Canada; and in clinical hypertension by the American Society of Hypertension. He is an active staff physician and adjunct professor at Vancouver General Hospital (UBC), and Trillium Health Partners (UofT), and a fellow with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Research: Fady served the NIH (2015-2021) as a physician-scientist in endocrinology/genetics, Head of Graduate Medical Education and Associate Program Director of endocrinology fellowship program. His research interests remain on adrenal disorders including primary aldosteronism, a common cause of hypertension that is potentially reversible with early detection and treatment. He has authored over 100 original articles, book chapters and reviews on endocrine-genetic conditions (h-index 20, i10-index 42), and was the founding member and first Editor-in-Chief of the medical journal Endocrine and Metabolic Science (Elsevier).