MENA Startup Ecosystem

MENA Money Isn’t Easy: Why Startups Fail Without a Localization Strategy

The Middle East is often painted as a land of easy money, where investors throw cash at anything with a pitch deck and a pulse. Reality is more nuanced. If you’re Sam Altman building a trillion-dollar empire, you’ll find large sums waiting for you. But if you’re an early-stage founder looking to tap MENA capital, then showing up with a “global” product won’t cut it. You need a credible and concrete strategy for the region.

MENA is not a monolith. It’s a patchwork of 20+ countries, each with its own cultures, languages, and business norms. History is full of foreign startups who thought they could copy-paste their “one size fits all” playbooks and win. Just look at European on-demand delivery startup Glovo: they charged into Egypt and Turkey only to retreat soon after. They weren’t built for a region where cash-on-delivery still dominates and where local competitors like Talabat and Mrsool understood the consumer far better. Glovo misread the market, failed to adjust payment models, didn’t adapt marketing for local audiences, and never gained enough traction to compete.

German e-scooter company TIER Mobility took a different approach. Instead of forcing a European model onto the region, they adapted. They worked closely with regulators to ensure compliance in the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. They adjusted their battery technology to handle extreme desert heat. They rolled out an Arabic-language experience, making their platform instantly more accessible. This granular attention to local detail turned them into a regional success story.

MENA consumers and regulators expect more than a translated app. They demand tailored solutions. That means language & cultural fluency (yes to Arabic interfaces, Ramadan-friendly marketing), trust-based payment options (cash on delivery remains huge), carefully calibrated pricing, and building alliances with the right partners or government bodies.

At Brinc, we’ve seen firsthand how startups succeed in MENA—and how they fail. We’ve built programs with NEOM, MBRIF, Omantel, OQ, and other regional leaders to help startups navigate regulations, form strategic partnerships, and execute a real market-entry strategy. Tapping into MENA capital isn’t impossible, but it takes more than ambition. The companies that win here don’t just show up—they show up prepared.

Are you attending Web Summit 2025?

Brinc is hosting an exclusive VIP networking gathering at the Marriott Marquis City Centre, Doha, on Tuesday, February 25th for key executives and investors to connect over a gourmet breakfast and meaningful discussions. Register here.

Our networking event will also feature products from Brinc alumni companies including Grounded, giving you the chance to try one of their plant-based protein m*lkshakes, and the Mashroo3i program (our Bahrain-based entrepreneurship program) Grams and Cals, with protein bars to keep in line with our breakfast theme.

Brinc’s Co-Founder & COO, Bashar Aboudaoud will be speaking on center stage at Web Summit on a panel that discusses the topic, “What’s driving early-stage deals in MENA today?” and you’ll also see a number of Brinc’s management team participating throughout the events in mentor hours and in offsite locations for the Corporate Innovation Summit and Venture Summit.

Let us know if you are attending - we would love to connect!

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1. Top 5% of Brinc’s Portfolio
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UpRounds are companies in our portfolio that are raising new funding rounds at higher valuations. Our goal is to simply connect interested parties to these great companies. Simple as that.

Grounded
Vertical: Consumer
Description: Grounded is a plant-based consumer brand producing healthy, organic, all-natural dairy-free protein shakes, milks and other beverages. They are the #1 plant-based beverage in Whole Foods UK.
Round Details: Raising a $1.5M Pre-Series A round to support expansion into the US in partnership with Whole Foods US.
Pitch Deck

Sova Health
Vertical: Healthcare
Description: Sova Health is a personalized full-stack gut health platform; the first in Asia to productize personalized gut care and offer tailored solutions based on users’ unique microbiome profiles. They have scaled to a $1.8M annual revenue business, driven by strong repeat rates and a lifetime value of $750+.
Round Details: They are raising a $5M round to accelerate their journey towards building Sova into a global brand and achieving their next milestone of $15M ARR. 
Pitch Deck

Interested in connecting with any of our portfolio companies above? Click below for a warm introduction.

Angel Academy #4

All It Takes is 1 Win

When investing in startups, one of the most important concepts to understand is the Power Law. Unlike traditional investing, where returns are often distributed more evenly, venture capital follows a highly skewed distribution. Startups are a high risk endeavor. The majority of startups will fail or generate minimal returns, while a small handful will produce the bulk of a portfolio’s gains. Studies have shown that fewer than 10% of startups drive the vast majority of returns in venture capital, making it critical to invest in companies with the potential to be massive outliers.

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Because predicting which startups will succeed is nearly impossible, the best way to improve your odds is through diversification. Instead of concentrating capital into just a few bets, experienced angel investors spread their investments across many high potential startups. This increases the likelihood of backing a breakout company that can more than make up for all the losses of others. Angel investing platforms like AngelList have made diversification more accessible than ever, allowing investors to participate in multiple deals with smaller check sizes. On AngelList, $50,000 can get you a portfolio of 50 companies. 

But angel investing isn’t just about playing the numbers game—it’s about having the right mindset. If you approach every startup looking for reasons to say no, you’ll definitely find them. Every early-stage company has its flaws, and most go on to fail. The best angels aren’t focused on what could go wrong; they’re focused on what could go right. They develop an ability to spot outliers and imagine the future where a startup succeeds beyond expectations. Angel investing requires optimism, vision, and the willingness to take calculated risks in pursuit of the rare but extraordinary returns.

Thanks for reading!