A new $50 million fund was announced late last year by venture capital firm Iliad Partners.
Christos Mastoras' venture capital firm, based in the UAE, will target early-stage B2B tech startups through the new fund (Partners Tech Ventures Fund I), with a primary focus on Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as sectors such as fintech, logistics and proptech.
In addition, the fund intends to allocate 10% of its capital to Europe, with a focus on Greece, to support startups expanding into the Middle East & North Africa region. In addition, it will support start-ups in the Middle East and Africa (MENA) region.
INVESTORS
The fund is backed by major regional and global investors, including
- Jada Fund of Funds (a subsidiary of the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Saudi Arabia)
- the Olayan Family
- Masarrah Investment Company
- MLM Investments
- the Constantakopoulos family
and other large business families and family offices from Gulf countries and Europe.
THE FIRST THREE MOVEMENTS
The Iliad Fund started its investments in three startups in the foodservice sector, namely:
- OTO (Saudi shipping portal and logistics platform for e-commerce stores and retailers)
- Penny (Saudi Arabian company providing cloud-based SaaS source-to-pay procurement solutions for enterprises)
- Qashio (a UAE fintech platform offering an integrated spend management solution for companies)
STORY
Iliad Partners was founded in 2016 by Christos Mastoras, a former tech entrepreneur with involvement in the creation and later exit of 4 startups (GlamBox, SloanGear, Upstream, govWorks), a former Yahoo Maktoob executive and management consultant at Booz & Company and Accenture, and Saudi Arabian Omar Al-Madhi, a fellow student at MIT Sloan School of Management. He was later joined by Sultan K. Olayan, who is currently a GP Partner and member of the investment committee.
