du launches a $50 million venture fund with Shorooq

Published: 2026-06-04T11:33:00.000Z

The UAE's telecom giants are increasingly acting like venture capitalists, and du has made it official. The operator launched du Ventures, a $50 million corporate venture fund built with regional investment firm Shorooq, to back startups in AI, fintech and other emerging tech across the region.

I've got solid detail across multiple sources. This is a UAE story announced June 3, so the regional angle is core. Here's the piece. The UAE's telecom giants are increasingly behaving like venture capitalists, and du has just made that shift official. The Dubai listed operator, run under Emirates Integrated Telecommunications, has launched du Ventures, a $50 million corporate venture fund built in partnership with the regional investment firm Shorooq. The idea is to put money into startups working on emerging technologies across the UAE and the wider Middle East, while giving du a closer look at the innovations that could feed back into its own business. Shorooq, a multi strategy firm with roots in Abu Dhabi, will manage the fund and steer where the capital lands. The targets are about what you would expect from a telco trying to broaden beyond calls and data. The fund plans to back companies across fintech, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, gaming, loyalty solutions, enterprise software and customer experience technology. A meaningful chunk of the money is earmarked specifically for UAE based ventures, which fits the national push to grow a homegrown tech economy rather than simply importing tools built elsewhere. du's chief executive Fahad Al Hassawi framed the fund as part of the company's evolution from a traditional carrier into a broader digital ecosystem player, and as a contribution to the country's ambition to build a globally competitive digital economy. What makes corporate venture capital different from a standard fund is the strategic angle, and du is leaning on that. Beyond writing cheques, the company is offering portfolio startups access to its infrastructure, its large enterprise customer base and its market reach, all of which can help a young business move from a promising product to actual commercial scale faster than it could alone. Shorooq founding partner Mahmoud Adi made a similar point, arguing that the most promising startups in the region need more than money, they need the kind of platform and infrastructure a player like du can provide. The timing says a lot about the state of the market. Corporates across the UAE are increasingly setting up their own investment arms to tap early stage innovation and diversify how they make money, and the broader funding picture is shifting in an interesting way. Deal activity in the UAE actually fell sharply in the first quarter of 2026, hitting a three year low for that period, yet the total money raised reached a record high for a first quarter at around $419 million. In other words, fewer deals but bigger ones, a sign that capital is concentrating around stronger bets. A fund like du Ventures, pairing deep pocketed strategic backing with a focus on regional founders, fits neatly into that more selective environment and reinforces the UAE's standing as the Gulf's busiest startup hub.