Baklava Made Better (BMB) Group is a food manufacturer that grew from making traditional confectionery to exporting healthy snacks to over 30 countries. ⁶

Founded by cousins Mohamad Khachab, Mohamad, and Bilal Ballout, the company operates a vertically integrated business supplying over 30 countries with high-quality, locally made, and healthier alternatives to imported brands. Its rapid expansion redefined “Made in Dubai” for the health-conscious market and made BMB one of the region’s fastest-growing food manufacturers. In 2018, Mohamad Ballout launched Kitopi, a foodtech unicorn that operates a cloud kitchen platform.⁷ In 2021, Agthia Group acquired BMB in one of the Gulf’s largest food and beverage exits.⁸ Since then, the founders have gone on to start new ventures, invest in and mentor the next wave of entrepreneurs. From a family kitchen in Dubai to shelves across the world, BMB shows how regional businesses can scale globally and turn success into a platform for others to grow.

Careem started as a ride-hailing app and grew into one of the region’s leading tech companies. Uber’s $3.1 billion acquisition of Careem in 2019 unlocked a wave of entrepreneurial activity. Former employees making up the “Careem Mafia” are launching new businesses across e-commerce, mobility, fintech, and logistics. The founders continue to fuel the local market as mentors and investors in numerous ventures across the region, and globally. In 2023, Careem spun out its Super App, from its core ride-hailing business, integrating everyday services such as transportation, food and grocery delivery, and digital payments across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia in partnership with e&.

Checkout is a global payments platform built in Dubai. It offers end-to-end processing solutions to merchants in over 150 countries.

Founder and CEO Guillaume Pousaz recognized that legacy systems weren’t meeting the needs of fast-scaling online businesses, and built a payments platform designed for performance and scale. More than a decade later, Checkout has scaled into a global decacorn, processing billions of transactions annually for companies shaping the digital economy, including eBay, DocuSign, Klarna, Netflix, Pinterest, and Sony. It helped position  Dubai as a hub for financial infrastructure. Today, Pousaz continues to back and mentor entrepreneurs through his investment platform Zinal Growth, and as a global board member at Endeavor, where he supports emerging tech founders.

InstaShop is a mobile-first grocery delivery platform that introduced hyperlocal logistics to the region. It allowed users to order from nearby supermarkets, pharmacies, and specialty stores through a single app. Its early backing came in 2016 from Jabbar Internet Group, the venture firm launched by Maktoob’s founders, and Souq which allowed InstaShop to demonstrate how strategic capital and strong execution can convert local inefficiencies into scalable digital platforms. Four years later, Delivery Hero acquired the company for $360 million.

Founder John Tsioris has since reinvested in new businesses across health tech, mobility, fintech, and proptech. He mentors founders between the Middle East and Europe. InstaShop’s trajectory shows how founder exits can support subsequent company creation. Each link transferred capital, playbooks, and operational experience leading to a faster and more connected ecosystem.

Kitopi is a cloud kitchen platform that enables restaurant brands to scale without upfront investment. It manages the entire value chain, from procurement to delivery.

SoftBank made its first MENA investment when it led Kitopi’s $415 million Series C round. The deal valued  Kitopi at unicorn status. It reflected confidence from global investors in the Middle East’s foodtech infrastructure. Co-founder Mohamad Ballout applied operational lessons from his earlier venture, BMB Group, while Bader Ataya brought consumer insight from Mumzworld, linking two of the region’s leading consumer businesses. The founders now actively mentor the next wave of foodtech entrepreneurs. Kitopi demonstrates how knowledge sharing between teams is supporting innovation across the Gulf’s consumer tech ecosystem.

Maktoob launched the first Arabic-language webmail service, enabling users across the Arab World to communicate online in their native script at a time when major platforms lacked Arabic support. In 2009, Yahoo! acquired Maktoob for $164 million. This marked the first major exit of a UAE-based tech company to a global player. The deal contributed to greater global investor interest in Dubai and the wider MENA venture ecosystem.

Soon after, founders Samih Toukan and Hussam Khoury launched Jabbar Internet Group, one of the region’s first venture firms, reinvesting in Souq, CashU, and InstaShop, while building key infrastructure for e-commerce, fintech, and gaming. Former Maktoob employees have since gone on to launch and lead ventures across digital media, gaming, edtech, e-commerce, and fintech. Maktoob helped train talent that went on to build new companies across the Arab world.

Launched in 2011 by Mona Ataya, and her brother Bader, Mumzworld introduced   e-commerce for mother and baby products in the Middle East. At a time when online shopping faced skepticism, they built consumer trust, normalized digital payments, scaled supply chains, and expanded to over 20 countries.

Drawing on her Bayt experience, Mona grew Mumzworld into a multi-sided marketplace. She introduced returnships for mothers, led one of the region’s first all-women angel rounds, and raised six rounds of capital in a market where women received less than 1 percent of funding. She continues to mentor entrepreneurs and serve on private and public boards.

Bader went on to co-found Kitopi, now a leading Gulf foodtech venture. In 2021, Tamer Group acquired Mumzworld marking the Middle East’s first major woman-led e-commerce acquisition. From Bayt to Mumzworld, and Mumzworld to Kitopi, the Atayas illustrate how family-led entrepreneurship recycles talent, capital, and expertise across ventures in Dubai.

Namshi, one of the UAE’s first online fashion retailers, offers clothing, footwear, and accessories from 500+ international and regional brands. Soon after founding Namshi, serial entrepreneurs Muhammed Mekki and Louis Lebbos launched AstroLabs, a corporate services platform that has supported over 2,000 high-growth companies to set up and expand their operations throughout the Gulf. AstroLabs also partners with regional governments and private sector players to design and run programs that develop strategic industries such as the technology, media, and industrial sectors. 

In 2017, Emaar Malls acquired Namshi for $151 million, later selling it to Noon in 2022 for $335.2 million. Emaar’s acquisition integrated Namshi into the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, demonstrating that homegrown ventures could scale with local institutional backing. Hosam Arab went on to co-found Tabby, a leading buy-now-pay-later platform that has reached unicorn status and reshaped consumer credit across the Gulf.

Namshi’s alumni and capital went on to support the creation of new companies across the ecosystem.  They illustrate how interconnected teams and repeat founders multiply impact, creating the infrastructure powering the Gulf’s next generation of ventures.

Property Finder was a first mover in digitizing real estate across MENA,  shifting home search from print listings to online platforms. Operating in a market with limited listing verification and transparency, the company introduced quality scoring and verification systems to improve listing reliability. Its growth coincided with increased investor attention to proptech as a venture-backed category in the region.

Founder Michael Lahyani opened the door for global capital to flow into MENA’s proptech landscape. His founder-led share buyback from early backer BECO Capital returned capital to a  leading regional VC, reinforcing LP confidence and releasing resources to fuel the newer wave of businesses. Today, Property Finder operates as a unicorn-valued company with a significant role in the regional proptech sector.

Souq was a third-party e-commerce marketplace that offered a broad selection of consumer goods online. Spun out of Maktoob, it offered electronics, beauty products, and automobiles tailored to markets across MENA.

As the Middle East’s first unicorn, Souq attracted over 45 million monthly users across 40 cities, proving that digital platforms could outpace brick-and-mortar retail. Beyond its online storefront, Souq developed logistics and payments capabilities through Q-Express and PayFort, building the infrastructure that linked MENA’s merchants to global supply chains.

Amazon’s 2017 acquisition of Souq.com, for a reported $580 million, established a new benchmark for regional scale and exit potential. It also accelerated investor interest in the UAE’s logistics, payments, and digital retail sector. Alumni have since launched new businesses in e-commerce, healthtech, logistics, and automotives.