Qatar at the forefront of regional entrepreneurship network

Posted by Qatar is BooMING on Oct 8, 2012 in NGO | 0 comments

Qatar will be positioned at the forefront of the region’s entrepreneurship ecosystem following the launch by Silatech of the country’s first business angel network — SILA, which means “connection” in Arabic. With this milestone initiative, Silatech is aiming to grow the start-up community into a vibrant enterprise culture in Qatar, and to boost the success rate of early stage new businesses.

Tarik Yousef

Silatech has identified a start-up equity gap, as entrepreneurs in Qatar find it difficult to obtain funding for their business ideas. The new angel investor network will aim to address this gap through collaboration with a variety of organizations both within Qatar and throughout the region. In addition to Silatech, Founding Partners in SILA include the Bedaya Center, Qatar Development Bank (QDB) and Enterprise Qatar (EQ). More SILA network partners and sponsors will be announced shortly.

According to Silatech CEO Dr. Tarik M. Yousef, “Despite a generally favourable enterprise climate and a lot of young talent with good business ideas, the equity gap between the seed and early business stages and the growth stage of small business with support from investment funds is a barrier to success that SILA will address. SILA will connect angel investors with start-up entrepreneurs by offering opportunities for interaction and personal mentoring at a series of regular events. In addition, SILA will provide training programs for both potential angel investors as well as aspiring young entrepreneurs.”

He added: “Our intention is to catalyze the start-up ecosystem in Qatar and develop sustainable enterprises with sound investment ideas. In keeping with the Qatar 2030 Vision, our focus mainly will be on knowledge economy businesses. By radically improving support services, SILA will provide a much-needed link in the entrepreneurship chain by fast-tracking learning and time-to-market for start-ups in Qatar.”