Forbes Middle East has unveiled the United Arab Emirates’ most promising start-ups and awarded the top entrepreneurs who have achieved remarkable success in developing their ideas into successful businesses.
Forbes said that all of the top 100 start-ups have raised $175m in external funding from top venture capitalists, angel investors, and corporate venture arms.
Forbes added that the sectors for consumer service, e-commerce, financial services, and insurance dominate the rankings, with over 50% of companies from these sectors.
The 100 entrepreneurs were broadly categorised into the most promising start-ups and the start-ups to watch out for. Start-ups from the consumer service sector dominated the list, followed by businesses from e-commerce, financial services, and the insurance sector.
Forbes noted that the top 100 companies were ranked on the amount of funding raised, backers, the size of the team, and the potential market reach of each business. For the most promising list, start-ups had to be at most five years old.
Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Middle East Khuloud Al Omian, said that within the “50 most promising start-ups category”, 28 start-ups gathered over $1m of follow-on funding and 32 raised money from investors excluding funding from friends and family. In the “50 to watch” category, 24 businesses are still bootstrapping and are self-starting without external input.
