On February 24, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) announced that it will establish a new $1 billion FoF to invest in international venture capital firms in the Gulf region. QIA said that the FoF will pay special attention to the fields of financial technology, education technology and healthcare, and is committed to attracting international venture capital funds and startups to Qatar and the Gulf region. In addition, the FoF will only be used to inject capital into venture capital funds and will not be used to invest in private equity or debt financing.
In doing so, QIA hopes to increase the number of startups in Qatar, create a better ecosystem for business growth, and close the gap in the business environment with neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. "Qatar currently does not have a dedicated pool of capital for companies that have completed their seed rounds and are ready to raise Series A to C rounds," Mansoor Ebrahim Al-Mahmoud, Chief of Qatar Investment Authority, said in a statement. Authority launched this master fund to ensure that innovative companies have easy access to venture capital funds, enabling them to expand their market share in Qatar and across the Gulf region and rise to the international stage."
Established in 2005, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is Qatar's national sovereign wealth fund that aims to provide ongoing financial support for Qatar's future economic development. With projected assets of $475 billion as of October 2023, QIA is one of the top 10 sovereign wealth funds in the world.QIA's portfolio covers a wide range of sectors globally, including, but not limited to, financial services, real estate, energy, healthcare, technology, and more.
QIA also has a deep connection with Chinese companies. Over the past nearly two decades, it has partnered with a number of Chinese companies and made investments in them, including Xiaopeng Motors, Banyan Tree, and Kingdee International, as well as holding a 13% stake in the Agricultural Development Bank of China. It has also launched a $10 billion fund with CITIC Group focused on investing in the real estate, infrastructure and healthcare sectors in Asia Pacific. Its Asia-Pacific regional head has said in 2023 that the target pool for investment in China is larger than all other regions in Asia-Pacific combined.