Abu Dhabi: Tech startup community Hub71 grows 191% in 1 year

Abu Dhabi’s vibrant and diverse tech community, Hub71, has announced it has now reached its milestone of 100 tech startups with US$50.4 million raised in capital for the new businesses since its launch in March 2019, demonstrating the strong appeal of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) among entrepreneurs worldwide. 

Despite the challenges of the last year, this entrepreneurial community, which harnesses innovation to meet the evolving demands of today’s society, has expanded from 35 tech startups in January 2020 to 102 a year later, surpassing the ‘100’ milestone and representing 191% growth, with 65% at Seed Stage and 35% at Emergent Stage, as of December 2020. 

Announcing that “Abu Dhabi’s global tech ecosystem has arrived”, Mohammed Ali Al Shorafa Al Hammadi, Chairman of Hub71, expressed commitment to “capturing more of the world’s top entrepreneurial talent” in order to support Hub71’s growth globally. 

“Now more than ever, we believe innovation and technology is our future and we will continue to support the growth of Hub71 from Abu Dhabi and beyond.”

Just one arm in the digital transformation of the city, Hub71 is a flagship intiative of Ghadan 21 – Abu Dhabi’s accelerator programme that’s driving the emirate’s development through investing in business, innovation and people. 

Delivering a diverse community of global tech talent

And Hub71 really is global. Representing an international community, it features 209 tech founders originating from 43 countries, with 18% women. And while Fintech startups have proven especially popular, the community has prioritised Healthtech companies in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. 

According to Hub71’s Impact Report, the latest cohort of startups, 27 tech startups selected from 127 applications worldwide, with 70% at Seed Stage, originate from 13 countries, including Hub17’s first startups from Israel, South Korea, Czech Republic and Nigeria.

Moving into 2021 and beyond, Hub71 aims to build on its existing community by focusing on attracting the best-in-class tech talent, entrepreneurs and investors to Abu Dhabi, and will further leverage the access provided by existing partners to forge partnerships in new markets across the globe to enable, support and engage with entrepreneurs and tech founders in their home markets as it sustains a high-quality pipelines of growing startups. 

So how does Hub71 work exactly?

Set against a backdrop of state-of-the-art infrastructure through its strategic partner Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), Hub71 gives tech startup founders access to top investors, world-class customers, expert mentorship and lucrative market opportunities. They also provide equity-free incenstives such as subsidised housing, health insurance and WeWork x Hub71 office space, to make relocating and setting up business in Abu Dhabi easy.