November Edition 2020

20 In October, Israel and the UAE announced the creation of a new trilateral fund with theU.S.potentiallyworthmore thanUSD3billion.According to theofficial statemen t, the Abraham Fund w ill bolster regional trade, enable strategic infrastructure projects, and increase energy security through providing reliable access to electricity. The fund also aims to improve agricultural productivity and facilitate reliable and efficient access to clean water in the region. The partners also welcome participation from other countries to advance these objectives. “Many of our problems transcend national boundaries, including water, food, disease and the environment , says Jon Medved, CEO of OurCrowd, a leading equity crowdfunding platform. He tol d CNBC th at he sees over USD 10 billion in bilateral investments between the two countries. “This agreement will accelerate rapid deployment of the latest innovation to fix the urgent issues facing us all: clean energy, smart cities, transportation, healthcare, education, security - so we can live safely , he said during an October 13 webinar, in which OurCrowd announced a new partnership with Phoenix, an Emirati business development company, to increase business and tech ties between Israel and the UAE. With regulatory and government support, the UAE is best placed to welcome Israeli start-ups. In recent years, two unicorn companies valued at over USD 1 billion each were created in the UAE: the e-commerce website Souq.com (acquired by Amazon in 2017) and the ride-hailing platform Careem (acquired by Uber in 2019). Another UAE-based e-commerce company, Noon.com, obtained USD 1 billion in funding in November 2016, and there are many more start-ups to watch, as spotlighted by Forbes. According to CB Insights, the UAE-based Emerging Markets Property Group (EMPG) is the only unicorn from the Arab World among the 490 unicorns globally. All the other seven regional unicorns are based in Israel. The combined value of these eight unicorns is estimated to beUSD10 billion (Dh 36.7 billion). New USD 3 billion trilateral fund UAE is the tech hub for the Arab world