NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

The $1 million seed funding raised will be used to accelerate MAGNiTT’s platform development and its growth, both regionally as well as across emerging markets. The company is also growing its technology team by onboarding new tech experts.

MAGNiTT provides users with a rich data platform on a subscription model and enables startups and investors to connect directly. Based out of Dubai, the platform is one of the largest online communities for start-ups across the MENA region. Company findings reveal that founder isolation across the region, and similarly across emerging markets, is a major pain point. To address this, the platform connects entrepreneurs directly with ecosystem stakeholders including funders, mentors, support services such as lawyers, and talent. Startups can apply for funding directly to VCs and angel networks using their MAGNiTT profile.

“As a startup ourselves, we are delighted with the strong support we have received from the ecosystem for our SEED round. The funds raised will allow us to accelerate our growth, by further enhancing our platform to better serve our existing markets in the first instance, and consequently extending our geographical reach by expanding outside the region where we look to solve similar pain points,” said MAGNiTT’s founder, Philip Bahoshy.

The investment round was led by 500 Startups, one of the most active VCs in the region by number of investments, along with other regional VCs and angel investors including Middle East Venture Partners, KISP Ventures, Financial Horizon Group and iNet.

“For start-up founders across the region, raising funding remains one of the biggest challenges. It is an extremely time-consuming process, and yet it is a key enabler for growth for entrepreneurs. A funding round can take anywhere between three months to over a year to close. By creating a data-driven startup platform with a focus on access to analytics, our aim is to help accelerate that process. Data remains at the core of investment decisions and this trend will continue to dramatically impact the start-up and investor ecosystem over the next few years,” Bahoshy added.

Having released over 20 reports since inception, a core focus of the MAGNiTT platform is education through data-driven analysis for its subscribers. The platform currently hosts 5,500 start-ups, over 12,000 users including over 300 individual investors and more than 150 funding institutions, be VCs or Angel Investors.

Photo courtesy of TheUjulala.