Bayt.com is MENA’s first online employment platform, connecting millions of professionals to opportunities and bridging academia and industry through large-scale career events.

Beyond Bayt.com, CEO Rabea Ataya also founded Talentera, vFairs, and YallaMotor, ventures that became regional leaders in recruitment software, virtual events, and automotive marketplaces. As an Endeavor board member, he continues to champion founders across the ecosystem. Cofounder Dany Farha established BECO Capital, Dubai’s homegrown VC firm behind Careem, Kitopi, and Property Finder, driving growth-stage funding in MENA. CTO Akram Assaf invests in and mentors emerging tech leaders, while cofounder Mona Ataya drew on her Bayt.com experience to launch Mumzworld, a pioneer in e-commerce. Collectively, the founders have invested in 40+ businesses, fueling the next wave of innovators.

Baklava Made Better (BMB) Group is a food manufacturer that grew from making traditional confectionery to exporting healthy snacks to over 30 countries.
Founded by cousins Mohamad Khachab, Mohamad, and Bilal Ballout, the company built a vertically integrated operation offering UAE-made alternatives to imported brands. Its rapid growth redefined “Made in Dubai” for the health-conscious market and made BMB one of the region’s fastest-growing food manufacturers. In 2017, Mohamad Ballout launched Kitopi, a foodtech unicorn now operating kitchens worldwide. In 2021, Agthia Group acquired BMB in one of the Gulf’s most notable food and beverage exits. Since then, the founders have invested in and mentored 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 isn’t just a super app, it’s a movement. What began as a ride-hailing service grew into a powerhouse platform for mobility, delivery, and payments across MENA and South Asia. In 2019, Uber’s historic $3.1 billion acquisition marked the region’s largest tech exit, igniting a new era of entrepreneurship. Today, Careem’s alumni are everywhere, launching game-changing ventures in e-commerce, mobility, fintech, and logistics. The founders continue to fuel the ecosystem as hands-on mentors and investors in numerous ventures across the region, and globally. In 2023, Careem spun out of Uber to expand the super app concept to the rest of the region in partnership with e&. Careem didn’t just move people; it moved an entire generation of entrepreneurs forward.

Checkout.com was founded in 2012 with a simple but ambitious mission: to help businesses thrive in the digital economy. Founder and CEO Guillaume Pousaz recognized that legacy systems weren’t meeting the needs of fast-scaling online businesses, and set out to build a modern payments platform designed for performance and scale. More than a decade later, Checkout.com has grown into a global leader, processing billions of transactions annually for companies shaping the digital economy, including eBay, DocuSign, Klarna, Netflix, Pinterest, and Sony. 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 the next generation of high-growth technology 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 from Jabbar Internet Group — the venture firm launched by Maktoob’s founders — showing how capital and conviction from one of the Gulf’s earliest exits seeded the region’s next generation of tech companies. In 2016, Souq.com took a strategic minority stake, giving InstaShop the operational muscle and regional visibility to scale. Four years later, Delivery Hero acquired the company for $360 million.

The InstaShop story demonstrates how exits set the stage for emerging entrepreneurs: Maktoob → Jabbar → Souq → InstaShop. Each link passed on capital, playbooks, and operational know-how, building a faster, more connected ecosystem.

Kitopi is a next-gen food and beverage ecosystem that pioneered a new restaurant operating model, growing its portfolio of owned, loved, homegrown brands through a unique multi-brand approach. Kitopi is seamlessly integrating operations, technology, and hospitality to elevate customer experience in the fast casual space. Co-founded by Mohamad Ballout after his BMB Group exit, Kitopi’s model drew global attention in 2021 with a $415 million Series C led by SoftBank — their first bet in the region — propelling it to unicorn status. Cofounder Bader Ataya, also the cofounder of Mumzworld, connects two of the region’s most influential consumer ventures, amplifying the family-led multiplier effect powering MENA’s venture ecosystem. Today, Kitopi’s success fuels a new generation of foodtech founders, proving how shared playbooks, interconnected teams, and operational excellence can create a chain reaction of 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 became a turning point for Dubai’s venture ecosystem, sparking global investor interest and expanding the horizons of what founders and VCs believed possible in MENA.

Soon after, founders Samih Toukan and Hussam Khoury launched Jabbar Internet Group, one of the region’s first venture firms, reinvesting in Souq.com, 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 shaped the talent driving the Arab World’s next generation of companies.

Launched in 2011 by Mona Ataya, and her sibling Bader, Mumzworld pioneered 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 20+ countries.

Drawing on her Bayt.com experience, Mona grew Mumzworld into both a marketplace and a movement—introducing returnships for mothers, leading one of the region’s first all-women angel rounds, and raising 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 in a landmark deal. From Bayt to Mumzworld, and Mumzworld to Kitopi, the Atayas exemplify how family-led entrepreneurship recycles talent, capital, and expertise to shape Dubai’s defining ventures.

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 hub for digital talent and businesses. In 2017, Emaar Malls acquired Namshi for $151 million, later selling it to Noon in 2022 for $335.2 million. Emaar’s acquisition embedded Namshi’s success firmly into the region’s entrepreneurial fabric, signaling that homegrown ventures could achieve scale while staying backed by local champions. Hosam Arab went on to co-found Tabby, a leading buy-now-pay-later platform that reshaped consumer credit in the Gulf.

From Namshi to AstroLabs, Emaar, and Tabby, flows of capital, talent, and growth playbooks illustrate how one fashion portal became a springboard for fintech, proptech, and corporate services. Namshi’s alumni demonstrate how interconnected teams and repeat founders multiply impact, building not just companies, but the infrastructure powering the Gulf’s next generation of ventures.

Property Finder was a first mover in digitizing the real estate search across MENA, transforming the search for homes from stacks of newspaper ads into a seamless, tech-driven experience. In a market once defined by unverified listings and opaque processes, it set a new benchmark with quality scoring and verification systems that redefined trust in property transactions. Its rise legitimized proptech as a serious, venture-backed category in the region.

Founder Michael Lahyani not only built a category leader but also opened the door for global capital to flow into MENA’s proptech landscape. His bold founder-led share buyback from early backer BECO Capital returned capital to one of the region’s pioneering VCs, reinforcing LP confidence and releasing resources to fuel the next generation of businesses. Today, Property Finder stands as both a market leader and a catalyst, proving how one founder’s vision can transform an industry.

Souq.com 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.

At its peak, Souq.com attracted over 45 million monthly users across 40 cities, proving that digital platforms could outpace brick-and-mortar retail. Beyond its online storefront, Souq.com built the backbone of regional e-commerce through its logistics arm, Q-Express, and payments arm, PayFort, building the infrastructure that linked MENA’s merchants to global supply chains.

In 2017, Amazon’s $580 million acquisition of Souq.com marked a turning point. It proved that Gulf businesses could scale and exit on global terms. The deal lit a spark across the region’s venture scene, drawing capital into logistics, payments, and online retail, and inspiring a generation of founders to build with global ambition.