The Chief Executive of Bahrain’s Economic Development Board (EDB) H.E. Khalid Al-Rumaihi has revealed that a new USD 100 million venture capital fund of funds will be established by the end of the year. According to Al-Rumaihi, the government would only take care of the regulatory framework, while the participating investment firms would find a corporate-led industry.
Additionally, Al-Rumaihi mentioned that this fund-of-funds will invest in various venture capital funds, including those focused on FinTech.
The EDB’s Chief Executive also spoke about the upcoming Bahrain’s Technology Week Pavilion (Datacenter). It would take place in Manama from 24 to 28 September 2017. During the event, some young and innovative companies would have the chance to showcase their work and prove how it would disrupt the global industry.
As on date, Bahrain has about 65 startups, according to Al-Rumaihi, who described the startup ecosystem in this island country as a “small and nascent system”. He expects this count to quickly double as Bahrain goes about developing the ecosystem.
Next, to the Technology week, Bahrain has also hosted the Amazon Web Services (AWS) summit yesterday, on the 25th of September, and is going to host the MITEF Innovation Forum on the 27th and 28th of September. During the AWS Summit, the audience learnt more about the cloud computing platform of Amazon, which was the first of its kind in the Kingdom. On the other hand, the MITEF Innovation Forum would bring together leading industry experts, high-profile managers of international companies, etc.
According to Al-Rumaihi, these type of events would ensure that Bahrain’s digital ecosystem becomes world-class.