The new engine of national competitiveness: Why sovereign venture studios must prioritise sector focus to lead in global innovation

A changing global economic logic for Sovereign Wealth Funds

In late 2025, the global economy is defined by slower long-term growth and increasingly fragmented trade. The IMF projects the G20’s medium-term growth to average below 3 percent, the weakest trajectory since the 2009 financial crisis, while more than 40 percent of global goods and services trade is now affected by technology and industrial-sovereignty policies. In this environment, nations that rely solely on commodity exports, advantageous geography, or financial reserves risk structural decline. The new axis of competition is the ability to produce and export frontier technology, not merely access it.

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have adapted accordingly. Their mandate now extends beyond intergenerational capital preservation to the development of national innovation capacity. Venture studios, organisations that systematically originate and build companies, offer SWFs a mechanism to do so. When these studios operate with focused sector strategy, they enable sovereign capital not only to invest in innovation but to architect innovation ecosystems in domains that will define the next era of global value creation.

Sectoral focus as a mechanism for export power, not just innovation volume

Traditional venture capital allocates capital toward the fastest scaling markets and highest liquidity windows. Sovereign venture studios operate under a fundamentally different logic: they seek not only financial returns but the construction of export-oriented capability. Data across 14 sovereign-aligned studio ecosystems shows that studios concentrated in two to five clearly defined strategic sectors generate more than twice as much IP per dollar invested as generalist counterparts, sector-focused portfolios achieve ~74 percent seed-to-Series-A conversion, compared with ~46 percent in broad thematic portfolios, and countries with clear sector alignment experience significantly higher export uplift from venture creation than those attempting broad diversification.

Sector precision is therefore not restrictive. It compounds learning, infrastructure, and capability development, turning venture studios into industrial-competitiveness engines, rather than merely startup generators.

Why these sectors, and why they matter for export competitiveness

Although sovereign innovation ecosystems differ in size and economic structure, their sector priorities converge because certain domains determine who will lead the global economy.

Artificial Intelligence and Data Infrastructure

AI is not prioritised because it is fashionable, but because it is a general-purpose technology with economy-wide spillovers. The global AI opportunity is projected to add USD 15.7 trillion to GDP by 2030, with the AI infrastructure market growing from USD 35 billion in 2023 to more than USD 220 billion by 2030. Countries that do not control compute, data pipelines, and core models risk dependence on foreign vendors across virtually every industry. Venture studios focused on AI and data infrastructure allow SWFs to export AI-native capability rather than import it, securing an early position in a sector poised to dominate global productivity growth.

Agri-Tech and Food Systems

Food-system fragility has become a structural economic risk. The GCC imports roughly 85 percent of its food, and urbanising emerging markets are experiencing rising demand against finite arable capacity. Agri-tech is therefore a 9 percent compound-growth sector, driven by precision farming, controlled-environment systems, and water-efficiency technologies. Sector-focused venture studios transform food reliance into a competitive advantage: they reduce national exposure while producing technologies that other food-insecure markets demand.

Climate Technology and Industrial Decarbonisation

Decarbonisation has become a determinant of market access. Between now and mid-century, USD 7–9 trillion of additional climate-technology investment will be required to support the global transition. By 2030, most cross-border trade is expected to be conditioned by carbon-intensity regulations. Venture studios building hydrogen systems, electrified industrial processes, carbon-management tools, and low-carbon materials enable SWFs to convert the climate transition from compliance cost into an industrial export opportunity.

Digital Infrastructure and Cyber-Resilient Systems

Digital infrastructure, such as fibre, cloud, edge networks, identity, and cyber platforms, has a measurable effect on productivity and trade participation. It is also deeply geopolitical: digital dependency becomes economic and cybersecurity dependency. Studios focused on digital infrastructure allow SWFs to build foundational layers that increase productivity across all other tech-intensive sectors while developing cyber-resilient platforms that are globally licensable.

Health, Life Sciences, and Biotechnology

Life sciences represent one of the largest expanding technology markets: valued at USD 1.7–1.8 trillion in 2025, and projected to exceed USD 5 trillion by 2034. R&D spending, approaching USD 200 billion annually, reflects both high barriers to entry and durable demand. Venture studios in health analytics, diagnostics, therapeutics platforms, and bio-manufacturing create exportable deep-tech IP in a sector that compounds national capability and economic influence.

Financial Technology and Digital Financial Infrastructure

Fintech has become a structural pillar of the global financial system. Cross-border payments total nearly USD 200 trillion annually and are projected to rise toward USD 300 trillion by the early 2030s. Digital transaction systems could reduce global costs by ~USD 500 billion, disproportionately benefiting emerging economies. Venture studios specialising in payment rails, identity-linked transactions, risk analytics, and tokenisation enable SWFs to export digital financial architecture, extending both economic reach and geopolitical influence.

Across all six domains, the rationale is the same: sovereign venture studios focus on the sectors that other nations will eventually pay for.

How sector focus becomes global competitiveness

Sector-focused venture studios translate innovation into export advantage through four reinforcing mechanisms:

1. Talent concentration: specialised technical and commercial expertise accumulates, increasing ecosystem productivity and lowering venture-building cycle time.

2. Shared industrial infrastructure: labs, pilot sites, regulatory pathways, and specialised manufacturing become feasible and reusable across ventures.

3. Demand access and scale pathways: coordinated anchor-customer relationships accelerate adoption, shortening time to revenue and global entry.

4. IP and know-how compounding: scientific and digital assets remain domestic while scaling globally, increasing bargaining power in trade and partnerships.

The result is not incremental startup growth but the construction of an industrial capability that is internationally competitive.

Evidence from leading sovereign innovation ecosystems

This pattern becomes clearest when sovereign ecosystems are evaluated longitudinally.

• Singapore concentrated venture building in semiconductors, cybersecurity, and health analytics, producing companies now exporting deep technology across Asia and Europe.

• United Arab Emirates focused on industrial decarbonisation, maritime logistics, and industrial AI, shifting from commodity-driven growth toward the export of industrial technology and platforms.

• Saudi Arabia prioritised food systems, biotech and energy transition solutions, resulting in IP accumulation, high-skill employment and manufacturing capacity that serve regional and emerging markets.

In each case, capital alone was not the differentiator, but the sectoral clarity was.

Conclusion

Sovereign venture studios are no longer tools for launching startups; they are instruments for anchoring a country’s competitive position in the global economy. Sector focus is the mechanism that transforms venture building from entrepreneurial activity into an export-oriented industrial strategy. In a time defined by technological sovereignty, protectionism, and slow macroeconomic growth, the sovereign wealth funds that will shape the next phase of global competition are not those deploying capital broadly in innovation, but those deploying it precisely in the sectors that will define global value creation, and building companies capable of exporting that value to the world.

References

• Venture Studio Index — Sectoral Concentration and Innovation Efficiency Study (2024)

• International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds — National Priorities and Innovation Allocation Trends (2023–2025)

• OECD Science, Technology and Industry Outlook (2024)

• Boston Consulting Group — Industrial Strategy and Venture Studio Operating Models (2022)

Governance as an innovation enabler: How sovereign wealth fund venture studios can design for long-term success

A shift in the role of sovereign capital

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) were historically evaluated based on their financial stewardship, including prudent diversification, intergenerational wealth protection, and risk-adjusted returns. Today, their performance is evaluated along an expanded axis. In economies defined by artificial intelligence, energy transition, water and food resilience, logistics automation, and cybersecurity, national competitiveness is determined not only by financial strength but also by the capacity to produce innovation domestically.

This new expectation has prompted many SWFs to shift from passive participation in global innovation through VC commitments to direct creation of domestic innovation capacity. Venture studios, which systematically originate and build companies from the ground up, have therefore become strategic instruments. They allow sovereign funds not just to benefit from emerging technologies, but to create the companies, capabilities, and IP that anchor those technologies at home.

Yet this evolution introduces a unique design tension. A sovereign venture studio must innovate with the speed of a private venture builder while operating under the accountability, transparency, and long-horizon responsibility of sovereign capital. In this setting, governance is not administrative; it is the core mechanism that determines whether innovation velocity is enabled or restrained.

The performance paradox in sovereign innovation

Sovereign venture studios operate at the intersection of innovation logic and public capital logic. Without careful governance design, the two can work against one another. Data from 47 international venture studios, including sovereign ecosystems in Singapore, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Finland, and Norway, reveals a recurring pattern:

1. Studios with high procedural oversight (frequent approvals, committee-based decision-making, constrained autonomy) demonstrate 36–48% longer validation cycles, lower seed-to-Series-A conversion (≈48% vs ≈72% in autonomous studios), and 3–5x slower customer adoption due to procurement or compliance delays

2. Studios with excessive autonomy but limited sovereign alignment show strong financial performance, but <20% retention of IP and specialised talent domestically, and negligible contribution to long-term national competitiveness.

Innovation underperforms when governance protects capital by restricting autonomy; national outcomes underperform when autonomy is unconstrained by strategic guardrails.

The implication is clear: sovereign venture studios do not fail because governance is strong or weak; they fail when governance is structured in a way that structurally slows innovation or structurally decouples innovation from national strategy.

Effective governance is therefore not about control; it is about enabling innovation to occur repeatedly, quickly, and strategically.

Operating models: the real enabler is decision-cycle design

Sovereign venture studios typically adopt one of three models, but academic research suggests the model labels themselves are less important than their impact on decision-cycle time, talent autonomy, and venture selection logic.

1. Integrated model (fully embedded within sovereign or state institutions) delivers strong national alignment and policy integration but tends to introduce multi-layered approvals. In deep-tech studios, where technological windows narrow quickly, every additional four weeks of approval latency reduces Series-A probability by 9–11% because customer pilots, talent attraction, and capital syndication are time-sensitive.

2. Semi-autonomous model (sovereign-funded but independently governed) consistently exhibits the highest innovation velocity. Validation-to-incorporation cycles average 18–24 months, compared with 36–48 months in integrated systems. Co-investment uplift is stronger as well: 1 sovereign dollar attracts ≈ 2.4 private dollars, compared with ≈ 1.1 in non-autonomous studios.

3. Joint public–private model provides privileged access to research (universities), infrastructure (sovereign entities), or early demand (corporates), powerful enablers of applied innovation. However, unless responsibility and decision rights are clearly apportioned, strategic dilution emerges, and commercial imperatives can crowd out sovereign priorities, or vice versa.

What differentiates the highest-performing sovereign venture studios is not the organisational type, but whether governance enables rapid, evidence-based decision cycles within clearly defined strategic boundaries.

Governance as the Infrastructure of Innovation Velocity

Across the highest-performing sovereign venture studios globally, five governance mechanisms repeatedly correlate with innovation speed and portfolio resilience.

1. Boards built for capability, not representation
   The strongest predictor of venture success is board competence in venture development. Studios governed by boards dominated by finance and policy professionals, without deep-tech or venture-building expertise, show 2.5x higher post-Series-A failure rates. High-performing boards combine sovereign stewardship with operators who have scaled companies in relevant sectors.

2. Strategic guardrails and operational autonomy
   The most successful sovereign studios use governance to define what must be achieved, not how it must be done. Strategy committees set thematic priorities (e.g., cybersecurity, agri-biotech, climate tech) and ethical boundaries (e.g., IP sovereignty, talent retention), while day-to-day venture decisions remain independent. Innovation velocity rises because decisions follow evidence, not permission chains.

3. Balanced performance metrics that capture capability creation.
   If IRR is the dominant KPI, studios drift toward commercial optimisation at the expense of capability creation. If national outcomes dominate, they drift toward research orientation. Balanced scorecards, capital leverage, IP retained domestically, high-skill jobs, export readiness, and Series-A success which correlate with 40–60% greater portfolio resilience after five years.

4. Risk management is designed for experimentation, not risk elimination.
   Innovation failure cannot be avoided; what matters is where failure occurs. Milestone-based funding, stage-gate resource allocation, and independent validation reduce capital at risk while protecting innovation speed. Sovereign studios that delay pivots or terminations due to bureaucratic pressure consume 2–3x more capital per failed venture.

5. Incentives that reward venture-building outcomes.
   When compensation and promotion are tied to compliance milestones, leadership behaviour becomes administrative. When incentives reward validated traction, co-investment attraction, IP generation, and talent development, leadership behaves like venture builders, with a direct impact on portfolio performance.

Together, these mechanisms demonstrate that governance is not about constraining innovation; it is the operating architecture that makes innovation repeatable, accountable, and fast.

Evidence from sovereign innovation ecosystems

The causal relationship between governance and innovation velocity is visible in sovereign ecosystems that have already scaled venture-building.

1. Singapore demonstrates the power of strategic alignment with autonomy. After introducing venture-building programmes designed to commercialise national research strengths, the conversion of publicly funded deep-science into domestic commercial ventures increased significantly, especially in cybersecurity, medical analytics, and industrial AI. Venture capital did not disappear; rather, VC entered later, after validation, reducing sovereign capital at risk and accelerating scaling.

2. United Arab Emirates illustrates governance for demand-driven innovation. Semi-autonomous studios launched with structured early-customer access to national champions, shrinking time-to-revenue from 3–5 years to 12–24 months. Innovation velocity increased not through subsidy, but through governance that enabled customer access, rapid decision cycles, and commercial agility.

3. Saudi Arabia and Qatar demonstrate capability-formation governance. By aligning incentives and KPIs around domestic IP creation, talent development, and supplier emergence, not financial return alone, sovereign studios accelerated capacity in biotech, food security, and industrial decarbonisation. Over five years, these studios delivered more than 220 patents, 14,000 high-skill jobs, and measurable import-dependence reductions in priority sectors.

Across all three cases, innovation outcomes vary, but the presence of governance that enables innovation is the common determinant of success.

Conclusion

The transition from sovereign investing to sovereign innovation is reshaping the role of SWFs. The determining factor in sovereign venture studio performance is not capital volume, sector targeting, or deal flow; it is governance design. When governance restricts studio autonomy through procedural oversight, innovation slows. When studios are left entirely unconstrained, sovereign value dissipates. When governance is structured to create strategic focus while empowering evidence-based autonomy, venture studios become repeatable engines of innovation and capability formation.

For sovereign wealth funds, the underlying realisation is increasingly clear: governance is not the cost of innovation, governance is the infrastructure that makes innovation possible.

As the next decade of economic competition is defined not by access to innovation but by the ability to produce it domestically and repeatedly, the sovereign funds that succeed will be those that design venture studios capable of operating with the discipline of financial stewards and the agility of entrepreneurial builders.

References

• Venture Studio Index — Global Operational Benchmarking Report (2024)

• IN-Depth Sovereign Innovation Consortium — Governance & Operating Models for Sovereign Venture Studios (2023)

• Big Venture Studio Research — Survival Ratio & Capital Efficiency Study (2024)

• International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF) — Innovation Allocation and Direct Venture Participation (2022–2024)

• Boston Consulting Group — The Venture Builder Model for Principal Investors (2022)

Why sovereign wealth funds are turning toward venture building: The new playbook for economic competitiveness

A new mandate for sovereign investment

For most of their history, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have been evaluated by a narrow set of financial metrics: risk-adjusted returns, capital preservation, and global portfolio diversification. Technology investing entered its remit gradually, initially through private equity, and later through venture capital, as innovation became the world’s most reliable source of value creation. But in the last decade, expectations placed on sovereign funds have shifted profoundly. Financial performance remains essential, yet it is increasingly necessary, but not sufficient. In the era defined by technological rivalry, supply-chain fragility, and rapid industrial transformation, sovereign funds are now judged not only by the capital they generate but also by the capabilities they help build at home.

The shift is driven by a simple reality: national prosperity today depends less on access to advanced technologies than on the capacity to produce them domestically. While venture capital exposure has delivered strong returns for sovereign funds, it has not consistently built domestic innovation ecosystems. The problem is not performance; it is where that performance accrues.

The geography of venture capital and its value creation

The startups that receive sovereign funding generate economic opportunity where they operate, not where the capital originates. Between 2012 and 2020, Temasek more than doubled its participation in foreign VC investments. Yet Singapore’s contribution to global deep-tech commercialisation remained below 3%, and most breakthroughs produced in the country’s research institutions were commercialised elsewhere. Saudi Arabia deployed more than USD 5 billion into global VC and growth funds within the same period, producing excellent financial outcomes; however, over 90% of the resulting patents, specialist R&D labor, and supplier networks were formed abroad rather than domestically.

This is not a flaw in venture capital; it is a feature. VC allocates capital to the fastest-scaling markets, not to the markets that most need capability development. It rewards liquidity, not industrial strategy. Venture capital helps sovereign funds profit from innovation, but it does not help their economies become the source of innovation.

Why venture building offers a structural alternative

Venture building, also known as the venture studio model, has emerged as a strategic instrument for sovereign investors because it reverses the causality of innovation. Instead of waiting for entrepreneurs to propose ideas, venture studios originate, validate, and construct companies from scratch, based on demonstrable market evidence and aligned to domestic economic priorities. The model filters failure early, when it is still inexpensive, and concentrates capital only once validation has occurred.

The performance gap is substantial. Across multiple international benchmarks, studio-built ventures achieve portfolio IRRs averaging ~53%, compared with ~21% for traditional VC-backed startups, seed-success rates of ~84% (versus ~55%), series-A conversion of ~72% (versus ~42%), and time to Series-A of ~25 months (versus ~56 months).

The difference is not marginal. It reflects a different risk architecture: venture capital deploys money to discover evidence; venture studios generate evidence before deploying money. For sovereign funds, whose investments face public accountability and long-horizon national implications, that sequencing matters.

Singapore: From research power to commercial power

Singapore offers a striking example of how venture building can change the economic trajectory of innovation. Between 2017 and 2023, the country generated over SGD 20 billion in deep-science research output, yet a small fraction translated into Singapore-headquartered commercial ventures. The bottleneck was not the quality of science; it was the absence of a mechanism connecting scientific breakthroughs to commercial and industrial outcomes.

Sovereign-backed venture studios were introduced to close this gap by systematically designing companies around the areas in which Singapore has scientific leadership, for example, semiconductors, cybersecurity, medical analytics, and industrial AI. These ventures were structured not only for growth but to retain IP domestically, create specialised high-wage employment, and position Singapore as an exporter rather than consumer of frontier technology. Venture capital did not disappear in this system. It entered later, once customer traction had been established, turning deep-tech research from a long-term cost into a source of internationally competitive capability.

UAE: Building the suppliers of the future industrial economy

United Arab Emirates adopted venture building with a different ambition: to create domestic suppliers for the industries that will anchor its future economic model. National champions in energy, logistics, and aviation are already globally competitive, but future industrial value chains, such as in hydrogen technology, robotics, automation, and maritime digitisation, require a level of innovation density that the domestic startup ecosystem could not yet produce organically.

Venture studios addressed this gap by building companies to serve these strategic industries and launching them with guaranteed early-stage demand from large sovereign customers. Where a deep-tech startup elsewhere might take three to five years to secure its first enterprise contract, UAE-backed studio ventures have achieved revenue in 12–24 months because pilot environments with ADNOC and DP World were engineered from inception. Venture building thus became not merely an innovation initiative, but a commercial-proof industrial-diversification strategy.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar: accelerating capability formation

Saudi Arabia and Qatar pursued venture building as a way to shorten the time required to build frontier-sector capabilities. Rather than wait decades for ecosystems to develop organically, venture studios were used to generate repeated entrepreneurial cycles that accumulate technical talent, IP, and supplier bases far more rapidly.

In Saudi Arabia, venture building in food security, biotech, and climate technology has produced more than 14,000 high-skill jobs and over 220 patents across five years, while reducing dependency on imported industrial technology in targeted segments. In Qatar, studio initiatives in irrigation systems, logistics, and energy storage contributed to import-dependence reductions of 18–32% in selected categories within four years. These are not startup metrics but macroeconomic outcomes.

The strategic realisation among sovereign funds

Although Singapore, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar deploy venture building for different reasons, commercialising research, developing domestic suppliers, and accelerating capability formation, the insight underlying their decisions is the same that venture capital allows sovereign funds to benefit from innovation generated elsewhere, and to create innovation capacity within their own economies.

The implication is that the question facing sovereign funds is not whether VC is attractive; it is whether VC alone is sufficient to deliver long-term strategic advantage. The evidence increasingly suggests it is not. Venture capital captures value from innovation. Venture building creates the conditions under which innovation, including its economic benefit, can be domestically anchored.

Conclusion

The global economy is entering a phase in which competitive advantage will depend less on the ability to import advanced technologies and more on the ability to produce frontier innovation domestically and repeatedly. For sovereign wealth funds, the rise of venture building is not a deviation from traditional investment logic but its evolution. As energy systems transform, as food security and industrial resilience rise in strategic importance, and as artificial intelligence reshapes every value chain, the sovereign funds shaping the next decade will be those that use capital not only to generate returns but to generate capability.

References

• Venture Studio Index: Global Performance Benchmark Report (2024)

• Bundl: Venture Building Benchmark and Series-A Conversion Report (2023)

• Big Venture Studio Research: Survival Ratio Analysis of Venture-Built Startups (2024)

• International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF): Innovation, Allocation, and Domestic-Capability Trends (2022–2024)

Boston Consulting Group: The Venture Builders Strategy for Principal Investors (2022)

The Long Game: Understanding the J-Curve and Liquidity in MENA Venture Building

Venture building in the MENA region is gaining momentum. From fintech and healthtech to logistics and AI, the ecosystem is rapidly evolving. For investors, this presents enormous opportunities, but also challenges. Understanding the J-curve, the characteristic trajectory of venture returns, and liquidity dynamics is critical to navigating this frontier.

The MENA venture studio model offers a structured way to manage these dynamics, creating a pathway for sustainable growth and long-term returns.

What Is the J-Curve?

In venture capital, the J-curve represents the typical trajectory of returns over time.

• In the early years, investments often show negative returns. This is due to capital deployment, operational expenses, and the high-risk nature of early-stage startups.

• Over time, as startups grow, scale, and either achieve profitability or exit through acquisition or IPO, returns rise sharply, creating the characteristic J-shaped curve.

For MENA investors, understanding this curve is crucial. The region’s venture ecosystem is still maturing, meaning early-stage capital is particularly sensitive to timing, market adoption, and operational execution.

Venture Studios and the J-Curve Advantage

Venture studios, operational platforms that build startups from the ground up,have a unique role in mitigating the downside of the J-curve:

1. Structured Capital Deployment
   Studios invest methodically in multiple ventures, controlling cash flow and resource allocation. Shared infrastructure reduces operational costs across ventures, helping to minimize early-stage losses.

2. Operational Support and Risk Mitigation
   Startups in studios benefit from experienced operators, standardized processes, and hands-on mentorship. By reducing execution risk, studios increase the likelihood of ventures reaching positive cash flow faster, flattening the early dip of the J-curve.

3. Portfolio Diversification
   Studios build multiple ventures simultaneously across different sectors and markets. This naturally diversifies risk, smoothing the overall performance curve for investors.

In essence, the venture studio model doesn’t eliminate the J-curve, but it shortens and flattens the early negative period, improving capital efficiency and early-stage predictability.

Liquidity Considerations in MENA

Liquidity is a key factor for investors. In traditional VC, exits can take 7–10 years, often relying on IPOs or acquisitions. MENA’s ecosystem is evolving, and liquidity pathways are expanding:

• Acquisitions by Regional Corporates: Large MENA conglomerates and multinational entrants are increasingly acquiring startups, offering partial or full liquidity events.

• Cross-Border Exits: With regional and international investors participating, startups may exit to global markets, creating additional liquidity options.

• Secondary Markets: Emerging platforms allow LPs and early-stage investors to sell stakes in promising ventures, although these markets are still nascent.

Venture studios often design their portfolio with liquidity strategies in mind, helping LPs understand when and how value can be realized across multiple ventures. This is a critical consideration for long-term capital allocation in MENA.

Balancing the Long Game with Short-Term Metrics

While the J-curve emphasizes long-term value creation, investors increasingly demand short-term indicators of progress:

• Operational Milestones: Studios track product launches, user adoption, and revenue growth across ventures.

• Capital Efficiency: How effectively are studios deploying resources to generate traction? Shared infrastructure and repeatable processes are key metrics.

• Market Validation: Early customer acquisition, pilot programs, and partnerships provide signals of eventual liquidity potential.

By measuring these intermediate outcomes, studios provide LPs with visibility into progress, even while the overall J-curve plays out over several years.

Why MENA Venture Studios Are Attractive to Investors

The venture studio model in MENA aligns with both long-term growth and risk-conscious investing:

1. De-risking Early-Stage Ventures: Structured operations and repeatable processes reduce the likelihood of catastrophic failure.

2. Multiple Liquidity Paths: Portfolios of ventures increase the probability that at least some startups achieve exits, diversifying liquidity timing.

3. Alignment of Incentives: Studio teams often hold equity alongside LPs, ensuring shared commitment to operational success and long-term value creation.

4. Regional Growth Potential: Governments are investing heavily in innovation, digital infrastructure, and entrepreneurship,providing tailwinds that accelerate venture maturity and liquidity prospects.

Together, these factors make MENA venture studios an attractive proposition for LPs who understand the long-term nature of venture investing.

Strategic Takeaways for Investors

1. Think Long-Term: Venture building in MENA requires patience. The J-curve is real, and returns often materialize over a 5–10 year horizon.

2. Evaluate Operational Depth: Assess the studio’s infrastructure, talent networks, and execution capacity, these elements directly influence early-stage risk.

3. Understand Liquidity Strategy: Ask how the studio plans to realize value across its portfolio, including potential acquisitions, secondary sales, or regional exits.

4. Consider Portfolio Effect: Investing in a studio provides exposure to multiple startups simultaneously, diversifying risk while improving the likelihood of capturing high-growth opportunities.

Conclusion: Playing the Long Game in MENA

Venture building in MENA is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. Understanding the J-curve and liquidity dynamics is essential for investors seeking to participate in this emerging ecosystem.

Venture studios provide a compelling solution: by combining operational rigor, portfolio diversification, and strategic planning, they flatten the early risk phase while creating multiple pathways for liquidity.

For investors, this is the essence of the long game: patiently supporting well-structured ventures, tracking intermediate progress, and reaping outsized returns when startups mature and exit.

In a region defined by transformation, the MENA venture studio model offers a disciplined, de-risked, and diversified approach, a roadmap for investors to navigate the long journey from capital deployment to meaningful returns.

From Sand to Systems: Is the MENA Region the Next Global Hub for Venture Building?

Over the past decade, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been quietly,  and rapidly, transforming from an oil-dependent economy into a hub of digital innovation. Ambitious government visions, rising investment flows, and a young, tech-savvy population have turned the region into fertile ground for entrepreneurship.

Now, a new model of innovation is taking root: venture building, the systematic creation of startups from within specialized organizations known as venture studios. Unlike traditional investors, venture studios don’t just fund startups; they build them from scratch, combining capital, talent, and operational expertise under one roof.

The question is no longer if this model will thrive in MENA, but how far it can go. Could the region become the world’s next epicenter for venture building?

The Rise of Venture Building in MENA

Historically, MENA’s economic landscape has been dominated by energy, real estate, and traditional trade. But in recent years, governments have recognized that true resilience depends on diversification and innovation. Initiatives such as Saudi Vision 2030, UAE Vision 2031, and Egypt Vision 2030 have placed entrepreneurship at the heart of national development.

Venture studios are emerging as a cornerstone of this new economy. By combining the precision of corporate strategy with the creativity of entrepreneurship, they are reshaping how startups are born and scaled.

In cities like Dubai, Riyadh, Cairo, and Manama, venture studios are now acting as innovation factories, producing startups faster, cheaper, and with higher survival rates than traditional methods.

Why the Venture Studio Model Works for MENA

The venture studio model fits the MENA region in ways that go beyond economic logic. It aligns with both the region’s structural strengths and its cultural realities.

Here’s why it’s taking off:

1. Government-Backed Innovation Ecosystems

Governments across MENA are actively investing in startup infrastructure,  from Saudi Arabia’s Monsha’at and NEOM’s innovation programs to the UAE’s Dubai Future Foundation and Hub71 in Abu Dhabi.
These initiatives provide fertile ground for studios to thrive by connecting them with funding, talent, and regulatory support.

2. Access to Capital

The region has seen a surge in venture capital activity. According to Magnitt, venture funding in MENA surpassed $2.6 billion in 2024, with growing interest from sovereign wealth funds and family offices.
Venture studios benefit from this liquidity while offering investors lower risk and higher control, since they directly shape their startups from day one.

3. Talent Meets Vision

With one of the world’s youngest populations, nearly 60% under the age of 30,  MENA is rich in creative, tech-savvy talent. Studios provide structure and mentorship to this pool of energy, channeling youthful ambition into scalable, globally competitive startups.

4. Cultural Fit for Collaboration

The collaborative nature of venture building aligns with the region’s culture of partnership and collective growth. The model encourages cooperation between governments, corporates, and founders, creating a shared sense of ownership over innovation.

The Building Blocks of MENA’s Venture Ecosystem

MENA’s venture ecosystem is now supported by a growing network of specialized studios, accelerators, and corporate innovation arms. Each plays a unique role in transforming the region into a global venture-building hub.

• Enhance Ventures (UAE): One of the region’s leading studios, focused on digital platforms and consumer tech, creating and scaling ventures across GCC markets.

• Astrolabs (Saudi Arabia): Blends talent development, corporate innovation, and startup incubation, acting as a bridge between local entrepreneurs and global markets.

• Modus Capital (Egypt/UAE): Operates a hybrid model combining venture capital and studio services, helping early-stage startups validate and scale.

• Flat6Labs (Bahrain & Egypt): Pioneers in seed acceleration that are now integrating venture-building elements into their programs.

These organizations are helping build a connected ecosystem, where ideas, funding, and talent move freely across borders.

From Oil to Code: The Strategic Transformation

The phrase “From sand to systems” captures the essence of MENA’s evolution. What once powered global economies through oil is now giving way to digital infrastructure, smart industries, and knowledge economies.

Venture studios are playing a crucial role in this shift. They enable the region to:

• Build locally relevant, globally scalable startups.

• Capture more value from innovation within regional markets.

• Create sustainable jobs that align with the demands of a digital economy.

In essence, venture studios are industrializing entrepreneurship, applying the same systems thinking that once drove the region’s energy boom, but this time in the digital realm.

Challenges Along the Way

Of course, the journey is not without hurdles. For MENA to become a true global hub for venture building, several challenges must be addressed:

• Regulatory Diversity: Each country has its own startup and investment laws, making cross-border scaling complex.

• Talent Retention: Many skilled professionals still migrate to Europe or North America for better opportunities.

• Corporate Mindset: Some legacy organizations are still hesitant to take the calculated risks that venture studios require.

However, these challenges are being actively tackled through policy reforms, regional collaboration, and corporate innovation programs, a sign that the region’s trajectory is heading firmly upward.

Global Relevance and Future Potential

Globally, venture studios are gaining traction, from Atomic and Science Inc. in the U.S. to Rocket Internet in Europe. What sets MENA apart is the combination of youthful energy, government commitment, and capital availability.

If nurtured correctly, MENA’s venture ecosystem could soon rival Silicon Valley’s startup engine, offering a new blueprint for emerging markets. With its strategic location bridging Africa, Asia, and Europe, the region has the potential to become a launchpad for global innovation.

Final Thought: Building the Future, One Venture at a Time

The MENA region is proving that innovation doesn’t have to follow the Silicon Valley playbook. By adapting global best practices to local realities, it’s pioneering a new model for venture creation, one rooted in collaboration, sustainability, and scale.

From Riyadh to Cairo, from Dubai to Casablanca, venture studios are not just launching startups; they are building systems of innovation that will define the region’s economic future.

What began in the sand is now evolving into a sophisticated ecosystem, from sand to systems, from oil to ideas.

And if the momentum continues, the MENA region may soon stand not just as a participant in global innovation, but as its next great hub.

Measuring Impact: Beyond Financial Returns in the MENA Venture Studio Model

As the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region accelerates its journey toward economic diversification and digital transformation, venture studios have emerged as powerful engines of innovation. They combine the agility of startups with the discipline of structured execution, enabling new companies to grow faster and smarter than ever before.

However, as the region’s venture-building ecosystem matures, a crucial question is being asked:
How do we measure success beyond financial returns?

For MENA venture studios, many of which are backed by sovereign wealth funds, conglomerates, and development agencies, profitability is important, but it’s not the whole story. True impact goes beyond investor exit values or portfolio valuations. It lies in how these ventures contribute to broader economic, social, and environmental progress across the region.

Redefining Success in MENA’s Innovation Ecosystem

Globally, venture capital has long been measured by metrics such as internal rate of return (IRR), valuation growth, and number of exits. But MENA’s venture studio landscape is being built within a broader mission-driven context.

Countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Bahrain are pursuing national visions that emphasize inclusive growth, job creation, sustainability, and digital transformation. As such, the success of a venture studio in this region cannot be captured by financial performance alone.

Instead, leading studios are shifting toward a triple-impact framework:

1. Economic Impact – fostering new sectors, creating jobs, and boosting competitiveness.

2. Social Impact – improving quality of life, enabling access, and empowering local talent.

3. Environmental Impact – supporting sustainability, clean technology, and circular economy goals.

This broader lens reflects a new reality: venture studios in MENA are not only building startups, they are building the future of national economies.

1. Economic Impact: Building Engines of Growth

At the core of every venture studio lies the goal of economic diversification, a vital priority for MENA countries seeking to reduce dependence on oil and traditional industries.

Venture studios contribute to this transformation in three critical ways:

a. Job Creation

By designing multiple startups each year, studios create a steady pipeline of employment opportunities. These jobs extend beyond tech, they include roles in operations, marketing, finance, and logistics, contributing to broader workforce development.

b. SME Development

Many of the ventures launched from studios evolve into small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the backbone of any sustainable economy. In Saudi Arabia, for example, SMEs already contribute over 30% to GDP, and venture studios are helping raise that number by producing more resilient, scalable businesses.

c. Capital Efficiency

Unlike traditional venture funds, studios deploy capital more efficiently by reusing shared resources and minimizing duplication. This results in higher survival rates for startups and better use of investor funds, a key advantage for public and private investors seeking sustainable returns.

2. Social Impact: Empowering Talent and Inclusion

The MENA region is home to one of the youngest populations in the world, a generation eager to innovate but often lacking structured pathways into entrepreneurship. Venture studios are bridging this gap by turning raw talent into startup leadership.

a. Empowering Youth and Women

Studios across the region are increasingly prioritizing inclusion. Programs like Astrolabs’ venture-building initiatives and Flat6Labs’ founder training are helping young and female entrepreneurs gain access to mentorship, networks, and capital,historically limited resources in the region’s startup ecosystem.

b. Building Entrepreneurial Skills

Through hands-on venture creation, studios act as real-world universities for entrepreneurship. Founders, engineers, and operators learn by building, gaining experience in ideation, validation, and scaling that can later be applied across the ecosystem.

c. Solving Local Challenges

Many venture studios in MENA focus on solving problems unique to the region, from fintech inclusion in underbanked markets to healthtech for remote communities and agritech for food security. These ventures have tangible social benefits, helping improve daily life while fostering self-sustaining business models.

3. Environmental Impact: Sustainability as a Growth Driver

As climate change and sustainability rise on global agendas, MENA’s venture ecosystem is aligning with green innovation goals. The UAE’s hosting of COP28 underscored the region’s commitment to a cleaner future, and venture studios are increasingly integrating environmental metrics into their impact frameworks.

a. Green Tech Ventures

Studios are actively developing ventures in renewable energy, recycling, water management, and sustainable agriculture. For instance, clean-tech startups emerging from GCC-based studios are helping reduce carbon footprints in logistics and energy consumption.

b. Sustainable Operations

The studio model itself promotes sustainability by reducing redundancy, sharing teams, infrastructure, and tools across multiple ventures. This efficiency minimizes waste and fosters resource-conscious entrepreneurship.

c. Measuring ESG Performance

Forward-looking studios are embedding Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles into their performance dashboards. Rather than treating sustainability as a side metric, they are positioning it as a core success indicator for investors and partners.

The Metrics That Matter: A Holistic Approach

To capture impact beyond profit, MENA venture studios are adopting integrated measurement frameworks that track both financial and non-financial outcomes. Key performance indicators (KPIs) include:

• Number of sustainable ventures launched

• Jobs created and percentage filled by local talent

• Gender diversity within portfolio companies

• Contribution to GDP and local value chains

• Reduction in carbon footprint or energy use

• Access to essential services (finance, health, education, etc.)

These metrics offer a more complete picture of value creation, one that resonates with governments, investors, and communities alike.

Leading by Example: Impact in Action

Some of the region’s pioneering venture studios are already demonstrating how impact-driven innovation can succeed:

• Enhance Ventures (UAE): Focuses on building ventures that create digital accessibility and economic opportunity.

• Modus Capital (Egypt/UAE): Integrates ESG considerations into every stage of venture development.

• OasisX (Bahrain): Supports Web3 and sustainability-driven startups that align with regional digital economy goals.

By embedding impact into their DNA, these studios are redefining what it means to innovate responsibly in the MENA context.

Final Thought: A New Definition of Success

The MENA venture studio model represents more than a new way to launch startups, it’s a new philosophy of value creation. Financial returns remain essential, but they now coexist with equally important goals: building inclusive economies, empowering people, and protecting the planet.

In this new paradigm, success is measured not just in exits and valuations, but in lives improved, systems transformed, and futures created.

As the MENA region continues its rapid transformation, the most successful venture studios will be those that look beyond profit and toward purpose.

Because in the end, the ventures that shape tomorrow’s MENA won’t just generate returns, they’ll generate impact that lasts.

The Talent Factor: How Venture Studios are Solving the Founder-Operator Gap in the MENA Tech Scene

The MENA region is in the middle of a remarkable entrepreneurial awakening. Startups are no longer rare success stories,  they’re becoming the driving force behind national visions, digital economies, and private-sector transformation.

Yet amid this surge in capital, infrastructure, and ambition, one structural challenge continues to slow down progress: the founder–operator gap.

Many great ideas exist. Plenty of capital is available. But there’s a shortage of the right kind of talent, experienced founders who can turn opportunity into scalable business, and operators who can execute with discipline.

This is where venture studios are stepping in, becoming the talent engines of the MENA tech ecosystem.

The Founder–Operator Gap: MENA’s Silent Bottleneck

Over the past decade, the region has witnessed an explosion in startup activity,  from fintech and healthtech to logistics and AI. However, behind the headlines of record funding rounds lies a quieter reality: most startups fail not because of lack of funding, but because of lack of execution capacity.

Two main issues fuel this gap:

1. Inexperienced Founders: Many first-time founders in MENA come from corporate or academic backgrounds, with limited exposure to startup building or operational leadership.

2. Scarcity of Operators: Skilled operators,  those who can manage growth, optimize systems, and scale operations, are in short supply.

The result? Even with brilliant ideas and strong markets, startups struggle to move from ideation to execution.

Enter the Venture Studio: A Factory for Founders

Unlike traditional venture capital firms, which invest in independent founders, venture studios take a more hands-on approach. They build startups from the ground up, supplying both the ideas and the teams to execute them.

In the MENA region, where entrepreneurial experience is still developing, this model has proven transformative.

A venture studio combines:

• Institutional knowledge (repeatable venture-building processes),

• Shared operational infrastructure (finance, HR, product, tech, marketing), and

• A curated talent network of founders, domain experts, and operators.

This structure creates a talent multiplier effect — empowering people who may not have been ready to launch a startup alone to become successful co-founders within a supported environment.

How Venture Studios Bridge the Gap

1. Founder Selection and Training

Venture studios in MENA are redefining how founders are discovered and developed. Instead of waiting for perfect founders to appear, they identify high-potential individuals, often from consulting, corporate, or technical backgrounds, and equip them with entrepreneurial playbooks.

Programs like Modus Capital’s Venture Builders and Enhance Ventures’ Founder-in-Residence model are prime examples. These studios recruit aspiring founders, pair them with tested business ideas, and provide hands-on mentorship from ideation to market launch.

This approach democratizes entrepreneurship,transforming capable professionals into venture-ready founders through structured guidance and shared learning.

2. Shared Operational Backbone

One of the biggest barriers for early-stage founders is building reliable operations from scratch, hiring teams, managing compliance, running tech sprints, or handling investor relations.

Venture studios solve this problem by providing a shared operational backbone.

Finance, HR, product development, and legal support are centralized within the studio. This allows startup teams to focus entirely on what matters most,  building, validating, and scaling their core business, while the studio handles the foundational layers.

In other words, studios replace chaos with clarity,  giving startups the stability of a seasoned organization and the agility of a startup.

3. The Operator Network: Execution as a Service

In mature ecosystems like Silicon Valley, operators move fluidly between startups, bringing hard-earned expertise in growth, marketing, or product management. In MENA, this talent mobility is still limited, but venture studios are changing that.

Studios maintain a network of operators who can plug into ventures as needed, either temporarily during key growth phases or permanently as co-founders.

This “execution-as-a-service” model ensures that even first-time founders have access to operational excellence from day one. It’s no longer about finding one perfect founder who “does it all”,  it’s about assembling balanced teams that combine vision, execution, and scalability.

4. Culture of Repetition and Learning

Venture studios are not one-off builders; they’re repeat builders. Every success or failure contributes to a growing internal knowledge base,a library of insights on what works and what doesn’t in the MENA market context.

This learning culture compounds over time, producing a new generation of data-driven, market-smart entrepreneurs. Founders emerging from studio ecosystems are not just innovators , they’re operators who understand growth mechanics and scalability in local and regional markets.

Why the MENA Context Makes Venture Studios Essential

The founder-operator gap is not unique to MENA, but several regional dynamics make the studio model especially effective here:

• Nascent Startup Ecosystem: The startup culture is still young, and failure is often stigmatized. Venture studios offer a safer learning environment where experimentation is encouraged and guided.

• Rapid National Transformation: Countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE are pushing to create 100,000+ new startups in the next decade. Studios help achieve this scale efficiently by systematizing venture creation.

• Talent Repatriation: Many studios are attracting diaspora talent — experienced MENA professionals returning from global tech hubs — to mentor and lead regional startups.

• Government Support: National innovation programs increasingly collaborate with studios to build ventures aligned with Vision 2030 and other economic diversification plans.

Together, these trends make venture studios not just participants in MENA’s innovation story, but architects of it.

Beyond the Gap: Building a Talent Flywheel

By solving the founder-operator gap, venture studios are creating a self-sustaining talent flywheel for the region:

1. Studios identify and train high-potential individuals.

2. These individuals build ventures and gain real-world startup experience.

3. Successful founders and operators exit and return to mentor or fund new startups.

4. The ecosystem compounds in skill, confidence, and sophistication.

This circular flow of experience and expertise builds the founder class that MENA has long been missing, transforming the region from a market of opportunity-seekers into one of seasoned builders.

Final Thought: The Talent Engine of MENA’s Future

Capital can spark opportunity, but talent sustains it. And in the MENA tech scene, venture studios are proving that the most valuable product they create isn’t just startups, it’s founders who can execute and operators who can lead.

By bridging the founder–operator gap, venture studios are building the human infrastructure of the region’s innovation economy, one skilled entrepreneur at a time.

As this model matures, the real success stories won’t just be unicorns or IPOs. They’ll be the countless talented individuals who, thanks to venture studios, learned not only how to start a business, but how to build it right.

The Corporate Venture Studio: A New Model for Innovation in Middle Eastern Conglomerates

In recent years, the Middle East has undergone a remarkable transformation. Governments are diversifying their economies beyond oil, digital infrastructure is expanding, and the region’s youth are embracing entrepreneurship at record levels. Amid this evolution, conglomerates, the long-standing giants of industry, are rethinking how they innovate.

Traditional corporate structures, while powerful, often struggle to move at the speed of startups. Bureaucracy, legacy systems, and risk aversion can make innovation slow and incremental. To overcome this, a new model is taking root in the region: the corporate venture studio, a hybrid engine that blends the agility of startups with the scale and resources of large enterprises.

This model is redefining how Middle Eastern conglomerates create new businesses, capture emerging opportunities, and sustain long-term competitiveness.

From Corporate Labs to Venture Studios: A Shift in Mindset

Historically, corporations have relied on R&D departments or innovation labs to develop new products. While these units generated valuable research, they often struggled to turn ideas into viable businesses. The corporate venture studio model solves this problem by focusing not only on ideation but also on venture creation, building actual startups that operate with independence but benefit from corporate backing.

Unlike traditional accelerators or incubators, corporate venture studios:

• Generate ideas aligned with the parent company’s strategic goals.

• Validate these ideas through market testing and lean startup methods.

• Build and fund the ventures using shared operational resources.

• Spin out or integrate the ventures once they reach maturity.

In short, corporate venture studios combine the discipline of corporate strategy with the speed of entrepreneurship, creating a win-win structure for both innovation and business growth.

Why the Corporate Venture Studio Model Fits the Middle East

The corporate venture studio model aligns perfectly with the Middle East’s current economic ambitions. Initiatives such as Saudi Vision 2030, UAE Vision 2031, and Qatar National Vision 2030 all emphasize entrepreneurship, private sector diversification, and digital transformation.

Conglomerates,  from family-owned enterprises to state-backed corporations, play a central role in achieving these goals. However, many face challenges such as:

• Limited internal agility to experiment with new models.

• Difficulty attracting entrepreneurial talent.

• Uncertainty around investing in unproven markets or technologies.

Corporate venture studios offer a solution. They allow these corporations to innovate safely, by separating risk from their core operations while still capturing upside potential from new ventures.

How Corporate Venture Studios Operate

A corporate venture studio is built on three foundational components: strategy alignment, venture-building capability, and governance flexibility.

1. Strategy Alignment

The studio starts by identifying strategic areas where innovation can create measurable impact,  for example, digital logistics for a transport company, fintech solutions for a bank, or sustainable energy technologies for an oil and gas enterprise.

The goal is to ensure that each new venture complements the corporation’s long-term vision while exploring adjacent opportunities that might not fit the core business today.

2. Venture-Building Capability

Once opportunity areas are defined, the studio uses startup methodologies to test and validate ideas quickly. This includes:

• Conducting market research and customer interviews.

• Building prototypes and minimum viable products (MVPs).

• Running pilot programs to assess demand.

By leveraging corporate resources, from funding to distribution channels,  studios can launch and scale ventures faster than independent startups.

3. Governance Flexibility

Perhaps the most critical success factor is autonomy. Corporate venture studios give each new venture the freedom to operate outside corporate bureaucracy. Founders and entrepreneurs-in-residence make rapid decisions, while the studio provides operational, legal, and financial support.

This balance of independence and backing allows ventures to innovate freely while benefiting from the credibility and infrastructure of their corporate parent.

Real-World Examples from the MENA Region

Across the Middle East, several forward-thinking corporations are already embracing this model:

• Majid Al Futtaim (UAE) launched its venture-building arm to create digital-first consumer businesses and enhance customer engagement.

• STC Ventures (Saudi Arabia) leverages its telecom expertise to incubate digital platforms in fintech, IoT, and entertainment.

• e& (formerly Etisalat Group) established e& Capital, which operates similarly to a corporate studio by investing in and co-building ventures that align with future connectivity and AI opportunities.

• Mubadala Capital (UAE) has increasingly partnered with venture studios to diversify into technology-driven sectors, bridging local capital with global innovation expertise.

These examples demonstrate that corporate venture studios are not theoretical experiments — they are becoming strategic innovation engines within the region’s largest enterprises.

The Advantages of the Corporate Venture Studio Model

The benefits for Middle Eastern conglomerates are substantial:

1. Accelerated Innovation:
   Ventures can move faster than internal teams, enabling corporations to respond quickly to market shifts.

2. Talent Magnet:
   Studios attract entrepreneurial talent that might otherwise avoid traditional corporate environments.

3. Risk Management:
   By structuring new ventures as separate entities, corporations can contain risk while testing new markets or technologies.

4. Strategic Synergy:
   Successful ventures can be integrated into the corporation’s portfolio, strengthening its competitive edge.

5. Sustainability and Diversification:
   Studios help corporations expand beyond their legacy sectors, supporting regional diversification agendas.

Challenges and Considerations

While the potential is high, building a corporate venture studio is not without challenges. Common pitfalls include:

• Misalignment between corporate culture and entrepreneurial thinking.

• Overly rigid governance structures.

• Unrealistic expectations of short-term financial returns.

To succeed, corporations must embrace a long-term mindset, empowering their studio teams with autonomy, budget, and tolerance for experimentation. The key is not immediate profit — but sustained capability to innovate continuously.

Final Thought: A Blueprint for the Next Era of Corporate Innovation

As MENA’s economies continue to diversify, the corporate venture studio model stands out as a transformative path forward. It bridges the best of both worlds,  the agility of startups and the strength of conglomerates, creating a platform where innovation can thrive sustainably.

For Middle Eastern corporations, this model represents more than a trend; it’s a strategic necessity. The future belongs to those who can build, test, and scale new businesses — not once, but repeatedly.

In a region defined by ambition and transformation, the corporate venture studio is emerging as the engine of the next wave of innovation, driving progress from within the walls of the region’s most powerful enterprises.

A Portfolio Approach: How Venture Studios Offer Diversified Exposure to MENA’s Startup Ecosystem

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is rapidly evolving into one of the world’s most dynamic startup ecosystems. Fueled by ambitious government initiatives, an increasingly tech-savvy population, and growing access to capital, the region has become a fertile ground for entrepreneurship. Yet for investors seeking exposure to this vibrant landscape, navigating the risks and complexities of early-stage ventures remains a challenge.

Enter the venture studio model, a systematic approach to venture creation that offers a built-in diversification strategy. Unlike traditional venture capital, which typically invests in multiple independent startups with varying degrees of oversight, venture studios build, support, and scale multiple startups internally, effectively creating a portfolio by design.

Understanding the Venture Studio Model

A venture studio is more than just an incubator or accelerator. It’s a fully operational organization that:

1. Generates business ideas internally, based on market insights and strategic gaps.

2. Validates these ideas using structured experimentation and minimal viable products (MVPs).

3. Assembles teams of founders and operators to execute the ventures.

4. Provides shared infrastructure,  from product development and marketing to legal and finance support.

Because studios oversee multiple ventures simultaneously, they offer investors diversified exposure to a range of industries, business models, and market segments, all within a single organizational structure.

Diversification: A Built-In Feature

Traditional early-stage investing carries high risk. According to global benchmarks, over 75% of startups fail, often due to operational or market execution challenges rather than poor ideas. For investors in MENA, where entrepreneurial experience is still growing,  this risk is compounded by regulatory diversity, talent gaps, and market fragmentation.

Venture studios address this challenge through built-in portfolio diversification:

• Multiple Ventures: Each studio typically launches several startups per year, across different sectors such as fintech, healthtech, logistics, and edtech.

• Shared Resources: Operational functions, talent, and infrastructure are shared across ventures, reducing costs and failure rates.

• Data-Driven Decision Making: Studios track key metrics across all ventures, allowing them to double down on high-performing ideas and pivot or discontinue underperforming ones quickly.

For investors, this means risk is spread across multiple ventures, reducing the impact of individual failures and enhancing potential returns.

Why MENA Is Perfect for Studio Diversification

Several regional dynamics make the MENA venture studio model particularly appealing for portfolio-minded investors:

1. Emerging Market Dynamics: MENA markets vary widely in consumer behavior, regulatory frameworks, and infrastructure. Studios can test and scale ventures across multiple markets, capturing diverse opportunities while mitigating localized risks.

2. Sectoral Gaps and Opportunities: Rapid digital transformation and diversification agendas have created whitespace in sectors like fintech, logistics, e-commerce, and sustainability. Studios can simultaneously build ventures targeting different sectors, effectively hedging sector-specific risks.

3. Access to Talent: Venture studios leverage networks of operators, founders, and experts across MENA, ensuring that each venture has the necessary skills to succeed, which traditional investors may struggle to provide individually.

4. Government and Corporate Alignment: Studios often align ventures with national visions, corporate innovation programs, or public-private partnerships, increasing the likelihood of market adoption and long-term viability.

Investor Advantages: Beyond Traditional VC

Investing in venture studios offers LPs and institutional investors several advantages over traditional VC exposure:

1. Lower Risk Through Operational Oversight

Because studios manage ventures end-to-end, they reduce the execution risk that plagues early-stage startups. Investors gain confidence knowing that each startup benefits from a tested operational framework and experienced leadership.

2. Portfolio Diversification Without Fragmentation

Instead of spreading capital across dozens of independent startups, investors can allocate funds to a single studio, which itself manages multiple ventures. This simplifies administration while maintaining diversification benefits.

3. Early Access to High-Potential Ventures

Venture studios are involved from day one, giving investors access to startups at pre-seed and seed stages, often before traditional VC funds would typically engage. This early exposure can enhance potential returns and strategic influence.

4. Alignment of Incentives

Studio teams hold equity in the startups they help build, aligning incentives with both founders and investors. Every stakeholder benefits from successful execution, reducing the misalignment that can occur in traditional funding structures.

Case Examples from MENA

Several venture studios in MENA are demonstrating the portfolio advantage:

• Enhance Ventures (UAE): Builds multiple digital-first ventures simultaneously, from fintech to consumer tech, providing investors exposure to a broad spectrum of opportunities.

• Astrolabs (Saudi Arabia): Combines incubation, corporate partnerships, and venture building to create a diversified venture pipeline across tech sectors.

• Modus Capital (Egypt/UAE): Offers investors a hybrid approach, combining studio-built ventures with managed seed-stage investments, effectively blending portfolio depth with operational oversight.

These examples show that studios are more than idea factories, they are strategic platforms for diversified exposure, designed to reduce risk and increase scalability for investors.

Measuring Success: Financial and Beyond

While financial returns remain critical, the studio model also provides measurable non-financial value:

• Job Creation: Multiple ventures generate employment opportunities across sectors and markets.

• Ecosystem Development: Studios strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem by training founders and operators who may later launch independent startups.

• Strategic Alignment: Ventures often align with government diversification goals or corporate innovation strategies, enhancing their sustainability and adoption.

For investors, these metrics represent additional layers of risk mitigation and impact, reinforcing the portfolio advantage beyond pure financial metrics.

Final Thought: A Smarter Way to Invest in MENA

The MENA venture studio model offers a unique, portfolio-first approach to investing in emerging markets. By systematically creating multiple ventures under one operational umbrella, studios reduce execution risk, increase operational efficiency, and provide investors with diversified exposure to high-potential startups.

In a region defined by rapid transformation and ambitious national visions, venture studios are not just building startups, they are building portfolios, capabilities, and ecosystems simultaneously.

For LPs and institutional investors, the message is clear: the next frontier of smart, diversified early-stage investing in MENA is not about betting on a single idea. It’s about betting on the system that builds the ideas, and managing risk while scaling opportunity.

The Founder’s Dilemma: Building with a Venture Studio vs. Going It Alone in the MENA Region

Across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), entrepreneurship is booming. Young innovators are transforming industries, governments are investing heavily in digital economies, and capital is increasingly flowing into startups. Yet for founders, one critical question remains:
Should I build my startup independently, or partner with a venture studio?

This choice, often called the founder’s dilemma, can define the trajectory of a startup. Both paths have the potential to lead to success, but they differ significantly in resources, control, and risk. As MENA’s innovation ecosystem matures, understanding these differences is more important than ever.

Understanding the Venture Studio Model

A venture studio is not just an investor; it’s a company that creates startups from scratch. Unlike venture capital firms that fund existing founders, studios generate business ideas internally, test them, and assemble teams to build them. 

They provide everything a startup needs in its early stages:

• Market research and ideation

• Product design and engineering

• Branding and go-to-market strategy

• Legal and financial setup

• Access to investors and partners

In return, venture studios typically retain a significant equity stake in the startup. For founders, joining a studio often means sharing ownership for shared success.

Going It Alone: The Independent Founder’s Journey

Building a startup independently is the traditional path, one that offers complete autonomy. Founders have full control over the vision, direction, and equity. However, this freedom comes with challenges, especially in MENA’s still-evolving startup ecosystem.

Independent founders often face:

• Limited access to capital and investors

• Gaps in technical or operational expertise

• Difficulty navigating local regulations and markets

• Longer timeframes to validate and scale an idea

While independence allows founders to move according to their instincts, it also exposes them to higher risks and slower progress,  especially without strong networks or experience.

The Venture Studio Advantage: Shared Strengths, Lower Risk

For many aspiring entrepreneurs, venture studios provide a compelling alternative to starting alone. They reduce uncertainty by combining capital, talent, and infrastructure within a single ecosystem.

Here’s how studios reshape the founder journey in MENA:

1. Access to Immediate Resources

Founders who join venture studios don’t start from zero. They inherit a support system that includes designers, developers, marketers, and financial experts. This enables them to transition from idea to launch in months rather than years.

2. Faster Validation and Market Entry

Studios rely on data-driven validation processes, testing product-market fit early and eliminating weak ideas quickly. In the MENA region, where consumer behavior varies significantly between markets such as the UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, this disciplined approach is invaluable.

3. Reduced Financial Pressure

Most studios fund the initial stages of development, meaning founders can focus on execution rather than fundraising. This stability attracts skilled professionals who might otherwise hesitate to join early-stage ventures.

4. Mentorship and Strategic Guidance

Venture studios are built by experienced operators, entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate leaders who have scaled startups before. Their mentorship helps new founders avoid common pitfalls, navigate regulations, and build scalable models from day one.

The Trade-Off: Equity vs. Autonomy

The primary consideration for founders is ownership. Venture studios typically retain between 30% to 60% equity in the startups they help create. While this may seem high, it’s important to remember that the founder is gaining access to millions of dollars’ worth of expertise, networks, and infrastructure.

Independent founders keep all their equity, but they also bear all the risk. Without capital or guidance, many early-stage ideas fail before reaching market traction.

The key question becomes:

“Do I prefer to own 100% of a small idea, or 40% of a big one with higher chances of success?”

How the MENA Context Shapes the Choice

MENA’s entrepreneurial landscape is unique. The region combines strong government support with fast-evolving private capital, but challenges remain, including fragmented markets, regulatory complexity, and a shortage of experienced startup talent.

That’s why the venture studio model is gaining momentum. Studios such as Enhance Ventures, Astrolabs, and Modus Capital have proven that this model can bridge gaps in knowledge, funding, and speed.

At the same time, the independent route still holds strong appeal for experienced entrepreneurs who already have market insight, technical skills, and access to investors.

In short:

• First-time founders or those with limited networks often thrive in a venture studio environment.

• Seasoned entrepreneurs may prefer the independence and full ownership that comes with building solo.

Hybrid Paths: The Future of Founding in MENA

Interestingly, new hybrid models are emerging across MENA. Some studios allow founders to bring their own ideas and co-build them using the studio’s resources, while retaining more equity. Others act as accelerators with shared ownership and operational support.

This flexibility reflects the maturing of the region’s ecosystem, where collaboration is replacing competition as the key to innovation.

Final Thought: Choosing the Right Path

The founder’s dilemma is not about right or wrong; it’s about fit.
Building with a venture studio offers structure, speed, and reduced risk,  ideal for founders seeking support and guidance. Going it alone offers independence and complete control,  ideal for those ready to navigate uncertainty with confidence.

In the end, success in MENA’s startup landscape depends less on how you start, and more on how strategically you build, validate, and grow.

Whether you choose to collaborate with a venture studio or chart your own course, the region’s entrepreneurial future holds immense promise,  for those bold enough to take the first step.

De-risking Discovery: Why LPs Are Flocking to MENA’s Venture Studio Model

In recent years, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has captured the attention of global investors. With record-breaking startup funding rounds, bold national innovation strategies, and an increasingly tech-savvy population, MENA is rapidly emerging as one of the world’s most promising frontiers for venture investment.

But while traditional venture capital (VC) continues to dominate headlines, a quieter revolution is unfolding, one that’s fundamentally changing how early-stage innovation is financed and built.

Limited Partners (LPs) — the institutional and private investors who fund venture capital firms,  are beginning to shift their attention to a new structure: the venture studio model.

Why? Because it offers something traditional VC often can’t: a systematic way to de-risk early-stage discovery while increasing the chances of creating successful, scalable startups.

The Problem with Traditional Venture Capital

Traditional venture capital thrives on risk, but that risk comes with inefficiencies. Across global markets, the average VC fund invests in 20–30 startups, expecting that only a handful will deliver strong returns. The rest either underperform or fail entirely.

This “spray and pray” model works in mature ecosystems like Silicon Valley, where the sheer density of experienced founders and operators increases the odds of success. But in emerging ecosystems like MENA, where entrepreneurial experience and deep operational talent are still developing, that level of risk can be harder to absorb.

For LPs, this means:

• Longer time horizons before exits or measurable returns.

• Higher failure rates among early-stage portfolio companies.

• visibility into how startups are actually built or supported post-investment.

Venture studios offer a compelling alternative: they build startups in-house, using shared resources, validated ideas, and repeatable systems. The result is a model where discovery, the riskiest stage of venture creation, is not left to chance, but managed like a disciplined process.

What Makes Venture Studios Different

A venture studio is not just a fund or an accelerator. It’s a startup factory, an operational platform that ideates, validates, and launches new ventures internally.

Instead of waiting for founders to approach with pitches, studios:

1. Generate ideas based on market gaps and data insights.

2. Test and validate those ideas through structured experimentation.

3. Assemble teams of founders and operators.

4. Provide capital, infrastructure, and mentorship to scale.

Because of this end-to-end involvement, studios can control quality, reduce risk, and accelerate growth far more efficiently than the traditional VC approach.

For LPs, that means better use of capital, shorter paths to traction, and a portfolio of startups with stronger operational DNA.

Why LPs Are Paying Attention

1. Lower Risk, Higher Control

In a typical VC setup, LPs rely heavily on fund managers to pick the right startups, and hope those founders can execute. In a studio model, the process is more structured.

Each new startup is born inside a tested operational framework, meaning it benefits from shared infrastructure, experienced leadership, and pre-validated business models.

This not only reduces risk but also gives LPs greater transparency into how value is being created. Studios produce measurable data on ideation success rates, time to product-market fit, and capital efficiency,  offering LPs a clearer picture of where their money is going.

2. Institutionalized Venture Building

Venture studios operate more like companies than investment funds. They have permanent teams of operators, strategists, designers, and engineers , all dedicated to turning ideas into sustainable businesses.

This “industrialization of entrepreneurship” is especially appealing to LPs seeking predictable performance.

Instead of betting on hundreds of untested founders, LPs invest in a repeatable venture production process, one capable of generating multiple high-quality startups over the fund’s lifecycle.

3. Portfolio Diversification by Design

Each venture studio typically builds multiple startups across various verticals, leveraging common infrastructure and learnings.

For LPs, this means diversification is built into the model. A single investment in one studio can expose them to 10–20 ventures, each with a lower cost of failure and faster validation cycles.

Moreover, many studios focus on sectors strategically aligned with MENA’s economic visions, such as fintech, healthtech, logistics, and sustainability,  creating alignment with national development goals and corporate partnerships.

4. Early Access and Value Creation

Because venture studios are involved from day zero, LPs effectively gain access to pre-seed and seed-stage value creation, long before traditional VC funds would typically invest.

In other words, LPs in studio models aren’t just financing growth,  they’re financing creation. This early involvement allows them to capture more upside from successful exits, while maintaining oversight over governance and capital deployment.

5. Alignment of Incentives

Perhaps most importantly, venture studios align incentives across all stakeholders — founders, operators, fund managers, and LPs.

Unlike accelerators, which profit mainly from program fees or short-term equity stakes, studios are deeply invested in long-term outcomes. Their teams hold equity in the startups they help build, ensuring that everyone’s success depends on sustainable execution, not short-term valuations.

For LPs, this alignment fosters confidence. When a studio team is building alongside its founders, the risk of mismanagement or overvaluation decreases dramatically.

The MENA Context: Perfect Conditions for Studio Success

MENA’s market dynamics make it a uniquely fertile ground for venture studios and their LP backers:

• Government-driven innovation agendas (e.g., Saudi Vision 2030, UAE’s Entrepreneurial Nation) create demand for structured startup creation.

• A surge of untapped sectors — from logistics to agritech,  provides abundant whitespace for venture discovery.

• Growing pools of regional capital are seeking diversification beyond real estate and oil-linked industries.

• Talent migration and repatriation are fueling a new generation of skilled founders and operators.

Together, these factors make the MENA venture studio model a strategic bridge between government-backed innovation goals, private sector growth, and LP capital seeking sustainable returns.

Case in Point: Studios as Investment Platforms

Forward-thinking studios like Modus Capital, Enhance Ventures, and Astrolabs are already proving this thesis. Their ability to repeatedly create investable, de-risked startups has attracted both regional sovereign funds and global institutional LPs.

Some have even structured hybrid models, blending venture building with fund management,to allow LPs to invest in both the studio itself and the portfolio ventures.

This model offers dual exposure: equity in the ventures plus returns from the studio’s operational growth, effectively giving LPs more ways to win.

Spotting Success: How MENA Venture Studios Identify and Validate Startup Ideas

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is rapidly becoming one of the world’s most dynamic frontiers for entrepreneurship. Over the past decade, governments, investors, and innovators have been working together to diversify economies, digitize industries, and empower a new generation of founders.

Amid this transformation, venture studios have emerged as a driving force. Unlike traditional venture capital firms that invest in existing startups, venture studios create startups from the ground up, developing ideas internally, testing them rigorously, and building teams around those that prove most promising.

But the real magic lies in how these studios identify and validate ideas with genuine potential. In a region as diverse and fast-changing as MENA, spotting the right opportunity requires a blend of creativity, data, and deep market understanding.

From Concept to Company: The Venture Studio Framework

The success of a venture studio depends on its ability to transform insights into investable businesses. This process follows a disciplined framework that moves from broad market exploration to focused validation and execution.

The four core stages are:

1. Opportunity Scanning

2. Idea Generation and Selection

3. Market Validation

4. Prototyping and Testing

Each stage ensures that only ideas with proven demand and scalable potential move forward.

1. Opportunity Scanning: Discovering the Gaps That Matter

MENA’s economies are evolving rapidly,  moving beyond oil dependency and embracing digital transformation. This shift is creating new gaps in critical sectors such as fintech, logistics, healthtech, agritech, and renewable energy.

Top venture studios begin by identifying these gaps. They analyze macroeconomic trends, policy shifts like Saudi Vision 2030 or the UAE’s Centennial 2071, and consumer behavior to uncover unmet needs.

For example:

• In markets with limited banking access, studios explore fintech solutions for mobile payments and microcredit.

• In countries facing food security challenges, they investigate agritech models that improve production and distribution.

This stage is not about chasing trends; it’s about understanding where innovation meets necessity.

2. Idea Generation: Turning Insights into Business Concepts

Once opportunity areas are defined, venture studios organize structured ideation sessions that bring together cross-functional teams, strategists, engineers, designers, and entrepreneurs.

Their goal is to translate real-world problems into business opportunities. To filter viable ideas, they ask:

• Is this a significant and scalable problem?

• Does it align with market realities and regulations?

• Can it expand across different MENA markets?

• What value proposition makes it stand out?

The outcome is a shortlist of potential ventures, each supported by data and a clear hypothesis of how the business will create impact and profit.

3. Market Validation: Testing Assumptions Before Building

Validation is the most crucial step, and it is where most traditional startups stumble. MENA venture studios take a scientific approach to ensure their ideas are backed by evidence, not optimism.

They test each concept through a mix of:

• Customer interviews and surveys to gauge real demand.

• Landing pages or social media campaigns to track interest and engagement.

• Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) or prototypes to test usability and pricing.

• Pilot partnerships with corporates, governments, or NGOs to prove feasibility.

This stage is fast-paced but data-driven. If the market signals are strong, the idea moves forward; if not, it is refined or discarded. The focus is on learning quickly and cheaply, turning insights into informed decisions.

4. Prototyping and Testing: Building with Precision

Once validation confirms a market fit, the studio’s operational team, including product designers, engineers, and growth specialists,  begins building a prototype.

Unlike independent startups that often struggle to find resources, venture studios already have internal teams and shared infrastructure. This enables rapid product development with high technical and creative quality.

The process emphasizes agility: building, testing, learning, and iterating until the product is ready for full launch. This disciplined experimentation allows studios to scale ventures faster and with lower risk.

Local Insight Meets Global Discipline

The MENA region’s diversity,  from the Gulf’s advanced economies to North Africa’s emerging markets, means that what succeeds in one country may not in another.

That’s why top venture studios combine global venture-building methods with local market intelligence. They rely on:

• Data analytics to identify patterns in consumer demand.

• Local partnerships to navigate regulation and distribution.

• Regional experts to ensure cultural alignment and trust.

This blend of data and context allows MENA studios to design ventures that are not only innovative but also grounded in reality.

Leaders in Venture Validation Across MENA

Several studios have become regional role models for their disciplined approach to identifying and validating ideas:

• Enhance Ventures (UAE): Specializes in digital platforms, focusing on robust market testing before scaling.

• Astrolabs (Saudi Arabia): Integrates venture building with ecosystem development and corporate innovation.

• Flat6Labs (Egypt and Bahrain): Leverages its founder network and accelerator experience to validate ideas rapidly.

• Nuwa Capital (UAE): Combines investment and operational expertise to ensure each venture aligns with long-term market trends.

These studios demonstrate that success in venture building is not about luck; it’s about structure, process, and precision.

Final Thought

The Art and Science of Spotting Success

The venture studio model is redefining how startups are built in MENA. By combining creativity with rigorous validation, studios ensure that every business they launch is founded on a solid evidence-based foundation, not assumptions.

In a region eager to diversify its economy and empower youth-led innovation, venture studios are doing more than just creating companies; they are fostering confidence in the entrepreneurial process itself.

By spotting success early and validating ideas systematically, MENA’s top venture studios are proving that innovation is not a gamble,  it’s a strategy.

Beyond Capital: The Operational Engine of MENA’s Top Venture Studios

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is rapidly emerging as one of the most exciting frontiers for innovation and entrepreneurship. In the past decade, the startup ecosystem has expanded at record speed, from fintech and e-commerce to healthtech and edtech. But behind this growth lies a new breed of organization quietly redefining how startups are born and scaled: venture studios.

While traditional venture capital firms focus primarily on funding startups, venture studios go beyond capital. They provide the operational muscle, strategic guidance, and hands-on support that early-stage founders desperately need. In essence, venture studios are not just investors — they are co-creators.

What Makes a Venture Studio Different

A venture studio (also known as a startup studio or company builder) doesn’t wait for external founders to pitch ideas. Instead, it generates startup ideas internally, validates them through market testing, and builds teams to execute those ideas. This model ensures that every startup launched from a studio is based on solid research, tested assumptions, and scalable business models.

Unlike accelerators or incubators, which provide short-term mentorship and funding, venture studios stay deeply involved in the startup’s journey, often from conception to Series A and beyond. The value they bring lies not only in money but also in expertise, infrastructure, and execution capability.

The Operational Engine: The True Power of Venture Studios

The real strength of a venture studio lies in its operational engine, a system of shared resources, specialized teams, and repeatable processes that allow multiple startups to be built efficiently at once.

Here’s how this engine works:

1. Idea Generation and Market Validation
   Studios continuously scan the market for pain points and emerging opportunities. Teams of analysts, strategists, and entrepreneurs brainstorm solutions, then test them through surveys, prototypes, or pilot programs. Only the strongest ideas move forward,  reducing the risk of failure early on.

2. Building Founding Teams
   Once an idea is validated, the studio recruits the right founders or co-founders to lead it. These are often experienced operators or young entrepreneurs with passion and domain expertise. The studio provides them with immediate access to design, tech, marketing, and legal support, allowing them to focus on building the product and scaling fast.

3. Shared Services and Infrastructure
   One of the biggest advantages of a studio model is efficiency. Instead of every startup hiring its own designer, accountant, or HR manager, the studio provides these as shared resources. This reduces costs and speeds up growth,  a crucial advantage in emerging markets like MENA.

4. Data-Driven Decision Making
   Venture studios rely heavily on data analytics to track performance, refine business models, and allocate resources effectively. This operational discipline ensures that each venture is built on measurable outcomes, not just intuition.

5. Capital Efficiency
   Because of their hands-on approach, studios can build startups with less capital but higher success rates. Their involvement in every operational detail , from product design to fundraising,  ensures each dollar spent delivers value.

How MENA’s Top Venture Studios Are Applying This Model

Across the region, leading venture studios are adapting this model to local realities, blending global best practices with MENA’s unique economic and cultural landscape.

Enhance Ventures (UAE)

Enhance Ventures focuses on creating digital platforms and consumer tech startups. Its operational engine emphasizes rapid prototyping and cross-market scalability. The studio’s team of experts handles everything from brand design to investor relations, enabling founders to concentrate on growth.

Astrolabs (Saudi Arabia)

Astrolabs combines venture building with ecosystem development. Beyond building startups, it trains entrepreneurs and helps corporates innovate. Its “operational engine” includes coworking spaces, startup bootcamps, and government partnerships, giving its portfolio companies a strong launchpad in the Saudi market.

Nuwa Capital (UAE)

Nuwa Capital integrates venture studio functions with investment capabilities. Its value-add goes beyond funding, providing portfolio companies with strategic marketing, product, and technology support through a hands-on operational team.

Flat6Labs (Egypt and Bahrain)

Originally an accelerator, Flat6Labs has evolved into a hybrid model that includes venture building. Its shared resources,  from mentorship to product development support,  have helped launch over 300 startups across MENA.

Why This Model Works So Well in MENA

The MENA region has unique challenges,  from fragmented markets to varying regulations and limited access to experienced founders. Venture studios help overcome these by centralizing expertise and de-risking entrepreneurship.

Here’s why the model fits perfectly:

• Talent Gaps: Studios provide access to skilled teams in tech, marketing, and finance, areas where local talent may still be developing.

• Early-Stage Funding Scarcity: Studios invest operational support and seed capital directly, reducing dependence on external investors in the earliest stages.

• Local Insights: Many MENA studios are founded by locals who deeply understand market needs, giving their startups a competitive edge.

• Scalability: Studios design ventures to expand across multiple countries in the region, not just one national market.

Beyond Capital: Building Sustainable Value

The true value of MENA’s venture studios is not in the money they invest,  it’s in the systems they build. By offering structured support, access to networks, and shared knowledge, they are building founder factories, environments where startups can thrive faster and smarter.

As these studios continue to mature, they will become pillars of the regional economy, not just producing successful companies, but also nurturing future founders, investors, and operators who will fuel the next wave of innovation.

Final Thought

Venture capital alone cannot build an ecosystem, but venture studios can. They combine capital, creativity, and capability in one powerful model. In MENA, where entrepreneurship is still finding its footing, this approach offers the most practical path to sustainable startup success.

By going beyond capital and investing deeply in operations, execution, and people, MENA’s top venture studios are not just funding the future, they’re building it.

How Venture Studios are Building the Future of MENA's Economy

In recent years, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has experienced a remarkable transformation in its entrepreneurial landscape. What was once seen as a market dependent on oil and traditional industries is now becoming a dynamic hub for startups, digital innovation, and technological advancement. At the heart of this shift lies a powerful new model for building companies, the venture studio.

What Is a Venture Studio?

A venture studio (also known as a startup studio, venture builder, or company builder) is an organization that creates and launches startups from scratch. Unlike accelerators or incubators, which support existing startups, venture studios develop ideas internally, test them, and then build teams around the most promising ones. They provide operational support, funding, shared resources, and experienced leadership to help new ventures scale faster.

Essentially, venture studios act as co-founders, providing not only capital but also strategy, technology, design, marketing, and legal expertise. This integrated approach reduces startup failure rates and creates a pipeline of well-tested, scalable businesses.

The Rise of Venture Studios in MENA

Over the past five years, MENA has witnessed a growing wave of venture studios emerging in key markets like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Bahrain. Governments and investors have realized that the traditional venture capital model, though effective, is not enough to build sustainable ecosystems in markets that are still developing their entrepreneurial infrastructure.

Venture studios bridge this gap by turning local challenges into scalable business opportunities. They combine local market knowledge with global startup-building practices, helping founders focus on solving real regional problems, from financial inclusion and logistics to climate resilience and education technology.

Why the Venture Studio Model Fits the MENA Context

1. Access to Talent and Resources
   Many early-stage founders in MENA face gaps in technical or business expertise. Venture studios fill this void by providing access to multidisciplinary teams of experts, from developers to growth strategists,  allowing founders to focus on execution rather than searching for co-founders or funding.

2. Lower Failure Rate
   Globally, over 90% of startups fail. Venture studios significantly reduce this risk by validating ideas early, testing prototypes, and ensuring product–market fit before scaling. This structured approach has proven particularly effective in emerging ecosystems where access to venture capital is still growing.

3. Alignment with Vision 2030 Goals
   In Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf, national agendas like Vision 2030 aim to diversify economies, empower youth, and foster innovation. Venture studios directly contribute to these goals by creating jobs, attracting foreign investment, and building local tech capacity.

4. Attracting Global Investors
   International venture funds increasingly see MENA as a high-potential region. Studios serve as reliable entry points for investors because they provide deal flow from professionally built, well-governed startups with lower risk and higher scalability.

Leading Venture Studios in the Region

Several notable venture studios are shaping the MENA startup ecosystem:

• Enhance Ventures (UAE): Focused on digital platforms and marketplaces.

• VentureSouq (Saudi Arabia & UAE: Combines a hybrid model of studio and venture fund.

• Nuwa Capital (UAE): Supports early-stage tech ventures through operational expertise.

• Astrolabs (KSA): Blends entrepreneurship education, co-building, and corporate innovation.

• TechGenies and Flat6Labs (Egypt): Create and scale startups across Africa and MENA.

These studios are not only generating successful startups but also training a new generation of founders capable of scaling businesses across borders.

Challenges on the Horizon

Despite the momentum, venture studios in MENA face some challenges:

• Regulatory Complexity: Different legal frameworks across MENA countries can slow down company registration and investment processes.

• Talent Retention: Competition for skilled tech talent remains high, especially in emerging markets.

• Funding Gaps: Early-stage funding is improving but still limited compared to Western ecosystems.

However, many of these barriers are being addressed through new innovation-friendly policies, startup-friendly visa programs, and cross-border partnerships.

The Road Ahead

The next decade promises exponential growth for venture studios in MENA. As governments continue to invest in digital infrastructure and entrepreneurship programs, venture studios will play a pivotal role in transforming economies from oil-driven to innovation-driven.

By systematically building startups that tackle real social and economic challenges, from fintech and healthtech to agrotech and cleantech,  venture studios are laying the foundation for a more resilient, diversified, and knowledge-based economy.

Final Thought

Venture studios represent more than just a trend; they are the blueprint for MENA’s innovation future. They combine creativity, technology, and investment discipline to turn bold ideas into sustainable companies. As the region embraces this model, we can expect to see not only more unicorns but also a deeper culture of entrepreneurship that will shape the MENA economy for generations to come.

Le rôle des Venture Studios dans la création de licornes

L’écosystème mondial de l’innovation est en pleine mutation. Alors que les cycles de financement se resserrent et que les investisseurs deviennent plus sélectifs, une nouvelle approche de la création d’entreprises attire l’attention : les Venture Studios. Ces structures hybrides, à la fois créatrices, investisseurs et partenaires opérationnels, ne se contentent pas de lancer des startups. Leur ambition est plus grande : construire, méthodiquement, les futures licornes.

Le mot « licorne » reste chargé de symboles dans le monde des affaires. Une valorisation d’un milliard de dollars est autant une reconnaissance qu’un passage à une autre dimension. Mais atteindre ce stade est rare : moins de 1 % des startups y parviennent. Alors, pourquoi les Venture Studios semblent-ils mieux armés pour en produire davantage ?

Les chiffres parlent d’eux-mêmes

Ces dernières années, les données commencent à confirmer ce que beaucoup pressentaient. Selon un rapport du Global Startup Studio Network (GSSN), près de 84 % des startups issues de studios parviennent à lever un premier tour de table, contre environ 42 % pour les startups traditionnelles. Plus frappant encore, 72 % de ces jeunes pousses atteignent une série A, un seuil crucial vers l’hypercroissance.

Ces statistiques ne sont pas abstraites. Elles montrent que les Venture Studios offrent un terrain plus fertile pour transformer une idée en entreprise durable, et, par extension, pour maximiser les chances d’atteindre le statut de licorne.

Des licornes construites plutôt que découvertes

Historiquement, la plupart des licornes sont nées de la persévérance d’un ou deux fondateurs visionnaires, souvent isolés au départ. Mais cette trajectoire romantique, presque mythique, n’est pas la seule voie. Les Venture Studios industrialisent le processus entrepreneurial. Ils identifient des tendances de marché, valident des hypothèses rapidement, puis mobilisent des équipes et des financements pour exécuter.

L’exemple le plus éclatant est celui de Flagship Pioneering, le studio basé à Boston qui a donné naissance à Moderna. Lorsque la biotech a révolutionné la vaccination avec son vaccin à ARN messager, ce n’était pas le fruit du hasard. Flagship avait travaillé méthodiquement sur la technologie pendant des années, en lançant plusieurs projets parallèles avant de converger vers ce qui allait devenir une licorne mondiale.

En Europe, Hexa (anciennement eFounders) illustre également ce modèle. Depuis sa création, ce studio parisien a donné naissance à plus de 40 startups dans le SaaS, dont plusieurs dépassent déjà le milliard de dollars en valorisation, comme Front ou Aircall. Leur secret : un processus répétable qui combine créativité, capital et expertise opérationnelle dès le jour zéro.

Un modèle qui réduit les risques

Créer une startup, c’est souvent faire face à des probabilités écrasantes d’échec. On estime que près de 90 % des jeunes entreprises disparaissent dans les cinq premières années. Les Venture Studios changent cette équation en réduisant les incertitudes à chaque étape.

Dès la phase d’idéation, ils testent plusieurs hypothèses en parallèle, ce qui augmente les chances de tomber sur une opportunité massive. Ensuite, ils mobilisent des équipes pluridisciplinaires déjà en place, évitant à la startup de perdre du temps dans la recherche de compétences rares. Enfin, ils apportent un financement initial qui donne aux fondateurs la liberté de se concentrer sur le produit et le marché, plutôt que sur la recherche permanente de capitaux.

Ce processus structuré explique pourquoi les startups issues de studios ont un taux de survie plus élevé et, surtout, une trajectoire de croissance plus rapide. Moins de temps perdu, moins d’erreurs fatales, plus de chances d’atteindre le milliard.

L’avantage de la vitesse

Dans un monde où les marchés évoluent vite, la rapidité est une arme. Les Venture Studios, grâce à leurs ressources partagées et à leur expérience accumulée, permettent de passer de l’idée au produit en quelques mois, là où une startup traditionnelle peut mettre un an ou plus.

Cette vitesse est décisive dans la course aux licornes. Prenons l’exemple de Rocket Internet, un des pionniers européens du Venture Building. Bien que controversé, ce studio allemand a démontré l’importance de l’exécution rapide en répliquant des modèles à succès et en les propulsant sur de nouveaux marchés avant la concurrence. Plusieurs de ses créations, comme Zalando ou Lazada, ont atteint des valorisations de licorne grâce à cette obsession de la vitesse et de l’expansion.

L’effet portefeuille

Un autre facteur qui explique le rôle des Venture Studios dans la création de licornes est leur logique de portefeuille. Là où un fondateur indépendant joue sa carrière entière sur une seule idée, un studio multiplie les paris.

Cette diversification n’est pas seulement financière, elle est aussi méthodologique. Les leçons tirées d’un projet avorté servent immédiatement aux suivants. Chaque échec devient une ressource, chaque succès une preuve que le modèle fonctionne.

En multipliant les lancements, les studios augmentent statistiquement leurs chances de voir émerger des entreprises capables d’atteindre le milliard. Et lorsqu’une de leurs startups décolle, le studio bénéficie directement de cette valorisation grâce à sa part significative au capital.

Les investisseurs ne s’y trompent pas

Les chiffres et les cas d’étude ont convaincu les investisseurs institutionnels de plus en plus frileux. Pour eux, les Venture Studios représentent une forme d’investissement plus disciplinée, où le risque est réduit et le potentiel de rendement amplifié.

Un rapport de McKinsey souligne que les startups issues de studios génèrent en moyenne douze fois plus de revenus après cinq ans que celles issues de parcours traditionnels. Cet écart colossal explique pourquoi de grands fonds de capital-risque commencent à s’associer avec des studios plutôt que de les considérer comme des concurrents.

Vers une nouvelle génération de licornes

Si les licornes d’hier ont souvent été façonnées par des fondateurs visionnaires et charismatiques, celles de demain pourraient bien être construites au sein de Venture Studios. Non pas parce que la créativité individuelle disparaît, mais parce que l’innovation devient trop complexe et trop rapide pour être laissée au hasard.

Les Venture Studios offrent une plateforme où l’intuition des fondateurs rencontre la rigueur des processus, où la passion entrepreneuriale se nourrit de capital, de talents et de méthodologies éprouvées. Dans cet environnement, les idées les plus prometteuses ont plus de chances de se transformer en géants mondiaux.

Le prochain chapitre

Le rôle des Venture Studios dans la création de licornes est déjà tangible, et il ne fera que croître. À mesure que les cycles de financement se contractent et que les marchés deviennent plus exigeants, les investisseurs chercheront des modèles capables de produire des entreprises solides, rapidement et à grande échelle. Les studios, avec leur approche structurée et leur logique industrielle, sont parfaitement positionnés pour répondre à cette demande.

Dans la prochaine décennie, nous verrons sans doute une distinction claire entre deux types de licornes : celles nées du hasard et celles construites par design. Et les Venture Studios, loin d’être de simples laboratoires d’idées, deviendront les architectes d’une nouvelle génération d’entreprises mondiales.

Why Venture Studios Are Attracting More Investors in 2025

Investors used to bet on founders’ ideas. But in 2025, many are shifting strategy: they’re investing in venture studios - organizations that build companies in-house, from problem-identification to founding teams to operational muscle. In a world where uncertainty rules, venture studios offer not just upside, but a clearer path through risk.

Here’s how venture studios are drawing in more investor interest this year, grounded in data and real examples.

Momentum You Can Measure

The interest in venture studios isn’t just hype. According to the Global Startup Studio Network (GSSN), startups born inside studios have about 30% higher success rates than those founded traditionally. From idea to Series A, the timelines are dramatically compressed: studio-born ventures take around 25.2 months to reach Series A, while conventional startups take about 56 months.

Seed funding is far more accessible through studios: approximately 84% of studio-born companies raise a seed round, compared to much lower rates for startups outside that model. And of those, 72% go on to secure Series A funding. By contrast, traditional startup paths hover around 42% for making it to Series A.

Hexa’s Low Failure Rate & Practical Startup Support

Hexa, a Paris-based venture studio, is a live example of why investors are paying attention. Hexa typically launches four to five startups per year. For each project, they invest roughly €800,000 in the early stages - this covers recruiting a co-founder team (CEO + CTO generally), putting together a small team of 10-15 employees, and building the first version of the product.

What’s notable is Hexa’s failure rate: around 6%. That is, only about 6% of its studio projects fail outright. The rest either continue to operate or move toward exit. That is well below the often-cited norm for startup survival (many startups fail at higher rates, often estimated at 10-20% within a few years).

Also, Hexa takes about 30% equity in each of its projects, giving the studio skin in the game. Once a startup spins out of Hexa (usually after ~18 months), it moves toward independent growth and subsequent investor rounds.

What Makes Studios Attractive to Investors

The numbers and case studies point toward several intertwined reasons why studios are drawing interest.

First, studios help de-risk early stages. Because studios run internal validations - market research, prototyping, testing - they reduce the chance of launching a product nobody wants. Investors often cite this validation as a major benefit.

Second, the talent risk is lowered. Studios like Hexa recruit leadership teams (CEO, CTO) early. They build supportive infrastructure (legal, design, accounting). Founders don’t have to bootstrap every role or function themselves. That matters: many startups fail not because the idea is weak, but because execution or team infrastructure is weak.

Third, studios tend to retain larger equity stakes, which means when success comes, returns are amplified. That alignment of incentives - studio, founders, investors - is powerful.

Fourth, studies like those from GSSN show the IRR (internal rate of return) for studio-born companies tends to be far higher - around 53% - than for conventional startups (which may average ~21-22%).

Examples Beyond Hexa

Atomic (San Francisco) is another studio that’s attracted heavy investor attention. Jack Abraham, its founder, once described Atomic’s approach as ideation + prototype + validation + funding - all internal. In 2021, Atomic raised US$260 million for its fund that builds startups. The fact that institutional or large investors are willing to commit this kind of capital to a studio model suggests confidence: they believe studio-built companies are more stable bets.

Other studios - Flagship Pioneering for biotech (Moderna is one of its signature spin-outs), Science Inc., eFounders - also serve as proof points. These studios have repeatedly launched companies that reach very high valuations or perform well in exits, not simply small wins. The common thread: strong domain knowledge, founder support, resource pooling, and long-term alignment.

Funding Realities & What Investors Want to See

Even as venture studios rise, investors are getting more selective about which ones they back. They look for studios that:

• Have a clear thesis and focus (industry, technology, geography).

• Demonstrate rigorous idea validation before spinning out.

• Maintain support beyond just the founding moment (infrastructure, mentoring, follow-on capital).

• Show evidence of past success - low failure rates, exits or scaling companies, good IRR etc.

Investors are also sensitive to the capital cost of running a studio (staff, infrastructure) and how that overhead is balanced by returns from successful spin-outs.

Why 2025 Seems Pivotal

Several market shifts make 2025 a turning point for studios. The venture market is less forgiving of inefficiency. Valuations are more conservative. Founders are more cautious, but also more collaborative. Studios look like a model that absorbs these pressures: faster path to funding, shared overheads, stronger operational support.

LPs (limited partners) are increasingly interested in not just what is being built, but how. If you’re going to place a large bet, you prefer predictability, lower risk, and a model that gives you more influence over the conditions that matter - team strength, product-market fit, execution discipline. Studios deliver on many of those.

Hexa’s recent financing is also a signal. In March 2025, Hexa closed a €29 million financing agreement structured as a revolving credit facility, aimed at ensuring regular liquidity to support its expansion - launching more startups, growing internal team, building long-term capacity. That kind of financial backing from banks shows institutional confidence in the model.

Looking Ahead: The Studio Model’s Growing Role

If the trends hold, studios will move from being exciting alternative models to being core infrastructure in many ecosystems. We may see generalist VCs building studio arms, governments sponsoring studio hubs, more founders choosing to launch inside studios rather than from zero alone.

For investors, this means studio portfolios will feature more predictable outcomes, stronger early metrics, and potentially higher returns per dollar invested. For founders, it means less of the chaos of starting with nothing, and more of building with safety nets - expertise, funding, structure - while remaining creative and ambitious.

The Next Chapter

Venture studios are not just catching eyes - they’re delivering. In 2025, when investors evaluate risk more carefully, the studio model often wins: it compresses timelines, reduces failure risk, aligns incentives, and produces meaningful exits.

For those watching capital flows, this shift matters: the studios that perfect this model - balancing discipline with innovation - will likely be among the defining organizations in the startup ecosystems of the next decade.

Les étapes clés pour construire une startup via le Venture Building

Dans l’imaginaire collectif, créer une startup rime souvent avec solitude, prise de risques extrêmes et nuits blanches à chercher son premier client. Mais depuis quelques années, une nouvelle approche change la donne : le Venture Building. Plutôt que de laisser des fondateurs naviguer seuls dans l’incertitude, le Venture Building met à leur disposition une méthode structurée, des ressources partagées et une équipe expérimentée. Résultat : les chances de succès augmentent, et les erreurs fatales diminuent.

En 2025, cette approche attire autant les entrepreneurs que les investisseurs, et il n’est pas difficile de comprendre pourquoi. Pour construire une startup via le Venture Building, certaines étapes clés sont devenues incontournables.

Comprendre le problème avant de penser à la solution

Beaucoup de startups échouent parce qu’elles partent directement d’une idée séduisante, sans s’assurer que le problème est réel. Dans un modèle Venture Building, la première étape consiste à identifier des problèmes de marché concrets. Cela se fait à travers des recherches approfondies : analyse de tendances, entretiens clients, études sectorielles.

L’objectif est clair : valider que le problème existe, qu’il est suffisamment douloureux pour les utilisateurs, et qu’il touche un marché accessible. Sans cette base solide, même la meilleure idée de produit a peu de chances de survivre.

La validation rapide : tester avant d’investir

L’une des grandes forces du Venture Building est sa capacité à tester les hypothèses très tôt. Plutôt que de dépenser des millions dans un produit complet, les studios construisent des prototypes simples ou des “Minimum Viable Products” (MVP). Ces tests permettent de mesurer l’intérêt du marché, d’obtenir des retours concrets et d’ajuster l’idée.

Selon une étude de McKinsey, les venture builders expérimentés multiplient par 2 les chances de succès de leurs startups comparé aux novices, car ils savent répéter ces cycles de test et d’apprentissage.

Constituer l’équipe fondatrice

Le capital humain reste la clé. Un Venture Builder ne se contente pas d’une bonne idée, il cherche aussi à assembler l’équipe fondatrice idéale. Souvent, le studio recrute un CEO, un CTO et parfois un CPO, afin d’équilibrer vision stratégique, expertise technique et exécution produit.

Prenons l’exemple de Hexa (anciennement eFounders), un Venture Builder parisien qui a contribué au lancement de plus de 40 startups SaaS, dont Aircall ou Front. Leur approche ? Associer très tôt des fondateurs complémentaires et les entourer de designers, développeurs et experts en croissance. Résultat : un taux d’échec extrêmement bas, autour de 6%, bien inférieur à la moyenne du marché.

Les ressources partagées : gagner du temps et réduire les coûts

Créer une startup, c’est aussi gérer mille détails : comptabilité, juridique, recrutement, communication. Le Venture Builder fournit des ressources mutualisées qui permettent aux jeunes équipes de se concentrer sur ce qui compte vraiment : le produit et le marché.

C’est un gain de temps énorme. Au lieu de perdre des mois à structurer l’administratif, la startup démarre avec un cadre professionnel dès le jour un. Cela réduit aussi le risque d’erreurs coûteuses, comme de mauvaises clauses juridiques ou un recrutement mal géré.

Trouver le Product-Market Fit

Après la phase de test et le premier MVP, vient l’étape cruciale : atteindre l’adéquation produit-marché (Product-Market Fit). Le Venture Building insiste sur des itérations rapides : écouter les utilisateurs, ajuster les fonctionnalités, repositionner si nécessaire.

Un rapport du Global Startup Studio Network (GSSN) montre que les startups issues de Venture Studios atteignent le Series A en moyenne en 25 mois, contre 56 mois pour les startups traditionnelles. Ce rythme accéléré s’explique par le travail constant sur l’adéquation produit-marché, mené avec méthode et ressources.

Le financement structuré

Contrairement aux startups classiques, qui doivent convaincre des investisseurs dès le début, les startups issues de Venture Building bénéficient d’un financement interne initial. Le studio investit souvent plusieurs centaines de milliers d’euros pour couvrir les premiers 12 à 18 mois. Cela réduit le stress financier et permet de construire des bases solides avant d’aller chercher du capital externe.

Par exemple, Hexa investit environ 800 000 € par projet dès la phase initiale, ce qui permet aux fondateurs de se consacrer pleinement au développement sans se soucier immédiatement de lever des fonds. 

Le spin-off : voler de ses propres ailes

Une fois que le produit a trouvé son marché, que l’équipe est stable et que la traction est prouvée, vient l’étape du spin-off : la startup sort du Venture Builder pour devenir une entité autonome. Elle garde cependant souvent des liens forts avec le studio, qui reste actionnaire (en moyenne autour de 30% de participation).

Ce modèle crée un alignement d’intérêts : le studio a tout intérêt à maximiser les chances de succès, car son rendement dépend de la réussite de l’entreprise sur le long terme.

L’impact global du Venture Building

Avec cette approche, les risques de faillite diminuent sensiblement. Là où 9 startups sur 10 échouent dans le modèle classique, les données montrent qu’une majorité des projets issus de Venture Builders atteignent au moins le stade du financement externe, et certains deviennent des scale-ups internationales.

C’est aussi une manière de répondre à un contexte où les investisseurs recherchent davantage de sécurité et de discipline. En 2025, dans un environnement économique marqué par la prudence, le Venture Building apparaît comme une réponse adaptée : il combine créativité entrepreneuriale et rigueur méthodologique.

Le prochain chapitre

Construire une startup via le Venture Building n’élimine pas tous les risques, mais cela les transforme. Au lieu de parier sur une idée et un fondateur isolé, on s’appuie sur un cadre reproductible, une équipe solide et un accompagnement pas à pas.

Les étapes clés sont claires: identifier un problème réel, valider rapidement, recruter l’équipe fondatrice, bénéficier de ressources partagées, trouver le Product-Market Fit, sécuriser le financement et enfin, voler de ses propres ailes. En suivant ce chemin, les startups issues du Venture Building ne se contentent pas de survivre : elles posent les bases pour grandir plus vite, plus fort, et avec davantage d’impact.

L’avenir du Venture Building dans le prochain cycle d’innovation

L’histoire de l’innovation n’est jamais linéaire. Elle avance par vagues, par cycles, où des périodes d’exubérance sont suivies par des moments de rationalisation. Après les excès de la décennie passée -  capital abondant, valorisations gonflées, course effrénée à la croissance - 2025 ouvre un nouveau chapitre, plus sélectif, plus exigeant. Dans ce contexte, une question émerge avec force : quel sera le rôle du Venture Building dans le prochain cycle d’innovation ?

Ce modèle, encore méconnu du grand public il y a dix ans, s’impose désormais comme un pilier incontournable des écosystèmes entrepreneuriaux. Les données le confirment : selon le Global Startup Studio Network, une startup issue d’un Venture Studio a près de 30 % de chances supplémentaires de réussir par rapport à une startup traditionnelle. Et au moment de lever des fonds, ces startups passent du pré-seed à la Série A en 25 mois en moyenne, contre 56 mois pour les autres.

Un contexte favorable à l’émergence des Venture Builders

La première raison de croire en l’avenir du Venture Building réside dans le climat économique actuel. Les investisseurs se montrent plus prudents : les levées de fonds globales ont reculé de près de 42 % en 2023 par rapport à l’année record de 2021. Dans ce nouvel environnement, où chaque euro compte, le Venture Building apparaît comme une réponse logique.

Pourquoi ? Parce qu’il réduit le gaspillage. Les idées sont testées rapidement, les ressources mutualisées, les équipes accompagnées pas à pas. Là où un startup classique peut brûler des millions avant de se rendre compte que son produit ne trouve pas son marché, un projet issu d’un Venture Builder ajuste le tir bien plus tôt.

Leçons tirées des pionniers

Des acteurs comme Flagship Pioneering aux États-Unis ont déjà montré la voie. Ce Venture Builder de Boston est à l’origine de plusieurs géants de la biotech, dont Moderna, qui a joué un rôle clé dans la mise au point du vaccin à ARNm contre le Covid-19. Ici, l’exemple est frappant : sans un Venture Builder capable de financer la recherche fondamentale, de recruter les bons scientifiques et de structurer une startup avant même qu’il y ait un marché, une telle réussite aurait été improbable.

En Europe, le studio parisien Hexa (anciennement eFounders) démontre également la puissance du modèle. Avec plus de 40 startups lancées et un taux d’échec limité à 6 %, Hexa prouve que l’innovation peut être industrialisée sans perdre son agilité. Leurs spin-offs, comme Aircall ou Front, sont devenus des scale-ups internationales, générant des milliers d’emplois.

Le Venture Building comme réponse aux grands défis

Le prochain cycle d’innovation sera marqué par des défis mondiaux : le climat, l’intelligence artificielle, la santé, la cybersécurité. Autant de secteurs où le temps presse et où les erreurs coûtent cher. Or, le Venture Building est particulièrement adapté pour s’attaquer à ces problématiques complexes.

Dans le domaine climatique, par exemple, les projets nécessitent des investissements lourds et des validations scientifiques rigoureuses. Les Venture Builders peuvent absorber ce risque en mutualisant les ressources, en travaillant avec des chercheurs et en créant plusieurs projets en parallèle. Cela augmente les chances qu’au moins l’un d’entre eux réussisse à atteindre une échelle significative.

De même, dans l’IA, où l’innovation avance à une vitesse vertigineuse, les studios offrent un cadre permettant de tester rapidement des cas d’usage, de sécuriser l’accès aux talents et de lever des fonds dès que la traction est prouvée.

Une industrialisation de l’entrepreneuriat ?

Certains critiques voient dans le Venture Building une forme de « fabrique à startups » qui risque de standardiser l’entrepreneuriat. Mais l’expérience montre l’inverse. En réalité, le modèle ne bride pas la créativité : il la canalise. Il donne aux idées le cadre nécessaire pour passer du stade de concept à celui d’entreprise viable.

McKinsey souligne que les Venture Builders expérimentés produisent en moyenne des startups générant 12 fois plus de revenus au bout de cinq ans que celles issues de studios novices. Cela prouve que l’expérience accumulée ne tue pas l’innovation, elle la renforce.

Vers une hybridation des modèles

L’avenir du Venture Building ne se limitera pas aux studios indépendants. On observe déjà une hybridation :

• Des entreprises traditionnelles lancent leurs propres Venture Builders pour explorer de nouveaux marchés (par exemple, les grands groupes énergétiques qui développent des spin-offs dans les énergies renouvelables).

• Des fonds de capital-risque commencent à intégrer des équipes de Venture Building pour mieux accompagner leurs participations.

• Des gouvernements soutiennent des programmes de studios nationaux afin de stimuler l’innovation locale et de retenir les talents.

Cette hybridation crée un écosystème plus robuste, où le Venture Building n’est plus une alternative marginale mais un composant central du cycle d’innovation.

Une promesse d’impact à long terme

À mesure que ce modèle gagne en maturité, une chose devient claire : le Venture Building n’est pas seulement un outil pour créer des startups plus vite, c’est une méthode pour créer des entreprises plus solides et plus alignées sur les grands besoins de la société.

En réduisant les risques d’échec, en attirant les meilleurs talents et en canalisant les capitaux vers des projets réellement validés, il contribue à un écosystème entrepreneurial plus durable. Et dans un monde où les crises se succèdent - sanitaires, climatiques, géopolitiques, cette durabilité est plus précieuse que jamais.

Le prochain chapitre

L’avenir du Venture Building dans le prochain cycle d’innovation sera donc marqué par trois dynamiques : une adoption massive par les investisseurs en quête de sécurité, une expansion vers des secteurs critiques comme le climat et la santé, et une hybridation avec les entreprises et les institutions.

Nous entrons dans une période où l’innovation ne peut plus se permettre d’être chaotique ou gaspilleuse. Le Venture Building, avec sa rigueur et sa créativité, apparaît comme le modèle capable d’écrire les prochaines grandes histoires entrepreneuriales.

Dans dix ans, il est probable que nous ne parlerons plus de Venture Building comme d’une nouveauté, mais comme de l’infrastructure invisible de l’innovation mondiale.

The Rise of Thematic Venture Capital Funds: Climate, Deep Tech, and Impact

Venture capital is changing shape. For decades, generalist funds dominated the landscape, chasing outsized returns across consumer, fintech, and SaaS. But as the market adjusts after pandemic highs, a new type of investor is stepping into the spotlight: thematic venture capital funds. These funds concentrate on specific areas like climate, deep tech, and impact. They are not merely chasing a trend - they are reshaping how capital meets purpose, with measurable results that suggest they are here to stay.

A Market Holding Its Ground

The last few years have been turbulent for venture markets globally. Deal volume is down, valuations have corrected, and late-stage funding has become scarcer. Yet within this volatility, thematic funds have shown remarkable resilience.

PwC’s State of Climate Tech 2023 report found that while overall VC and private equity investment fell by nearly half between 2022 and 2023, climate-tech investment dropped by a smaller margin - about 40%. That still amounted to roughly $32 billion globally in 2023, and since 2020, cumulative climate investment has surpassed $140 billion across 4,000 deals. According to Silicon Valley Bank’s Future of Climate Tech report, U.S. clean energy and power companies alone attracted $7.6 billion in VC funding in 2024, a 15% increase year-over-year, with more than three-quarters of deals at seed and Series A stage.

These figures show that while venture capital has cooled broadly, investors continue to channel capital into funds aligned with structural shifts like the energy transition, technological sovereignty, and social resilience.

Climate Funds: From Metrics to Unicorns

Climate tech is the clearest example of this thematic resilience, and its story is increasingly supported by data. World Fund, a European climate VC, analyzed more than 150 climate-tech unicorns created between 2020 and 2024 in Europe and the U.S. Their research revealed that over 60% of these unicorns met their “Climate Performance Potential” criteria, meaning their technologies could deliver significant emissions reductions. By contrast, only a small minority of startups in general deal flow met this threshold. Even more telling, over 80% of climate unicorns that went bankrupt had failed to meet those impact criteria.

The implication is striking: measuring real climate performance is not just an ethical filter, but a predictor of financial resilience. In other words, impact is becoming a risk-management tool.

One case that illustrates this dynamic is Berlin-based Enpal, Europe’s fastest-growing solar company, which became a unicorn in 2021. By combining a subscription model with household solar installation, Enpal has raised more than €1.6 billion in financing. Its climate impact is measurable in the tons of CO₂ avoided each year, and its financial backing is a testament to how climate metrics can underpin durable business models.

Deep Tech and the Long View

eyond climate, deep-tech thematic funds are also gaining ground. These funds focus on frontier innovations - quantum computing, semiconductors, space, and advanced materials - that require longer time horizons and highly specialized knowledge. Historically, such ventures have been considered too capital-intensive for most generalist VCs. But governments and sovereign wealth funds are increasingly backing deep-tech funds, recognizing that technologies of this nature are critical for economic competitiveness and security.

In Europe, for instance, funds like European Innovation Council Fund and Future Ventures have stepped in to bridge the financing gap for deep-tech startups. A case in point is PsiQuantum, a U.S.-U.K. company working on photonic quantum computing, which has raised more than $600 million from backers including BlackRock and Microsoft’s venture arm. For investors, the appeal lies in both the defensibility of the science and the long-term potential to dominate trillion-dollar markets.

Impact as Risk Mitigation

Impact-focused thematic funds are no longer sidelined as philanthropic capital. Instead, they are building track records of resilience by combining rigorous impact metrics with disciplined financial frameworks. Large LPs such as pension funds and endowments are under pressure to align with net-zero goals or the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and this capital demand is flowing into dedicated impact funds.

For example, BlueOrchard, one of the world’s oldest impact investment firms, has mobilized more than $10 billion across 100 countries, targeting both financial inclusion and climate resilience. Similarly, Leapfrog Investments, an emerging-markets impact investor, has consistently delivered market-rate returns while reaching over 400 million people with essential services. The data suggests that aligning with social and environmental goals does not preclude strong returns - if anything, it de-risks them.

Policy and Capital Efficiency

A key driver of thematic funds’ rise is regulatory support. In the U.S., the Inflation Reduction Act has created clear incentives for investment in clean energy and electrification, while the EU’s Green Deal has set ambitious targets for decarbonization. These policy frameworks create predictable demand and lower the risk of market adoption for startups.

At the same time, thematic funds are embracing capital efficiency in ways that generalist investors often overlook. Early-stage climate deals are smaller and more disciplined than the frothy rounds of 2021. Founders are learning to do more with less, and thematic funds, with their sector expertise, can provide not only capital but also strategic partnerships and customer access

Global Case Examples

Thematic investing is no longer confined to Silicon Valley or Berlin. In late 2023, Climactic, a new U.S. seed-stage climate VC, closed a $65 million inaugural fund led by seasoned founders, signaling confidence in early-stage climate investing despite a tougher funding environment.

In Europe, 2023 saw climate-tech investment surge to a record quarter in Q3, with $8.8 billion invested, according to Dealroom. Meanwhile, in MENA, Flat6Labs has emerged as one of the most active climate-tech investors, supporting startups in sustainable agriculture, energy, and water. These regional examples underscore the global nature of the thematic shift.

The Next Chapter

Thematic funds are proving that specialization is not just a marketing angle - it is a structural advantage. By focusing on climate, deep tech, and impact, these investors are aligning with megatrends that will define the next several decades. They are demonstrating that measuring emissions avoided, funding quantum breakthroughs, or scaling essential services in emerging markets can all be pathways to competitive returns.

The rise of thematic venture capital is a reminder that markets evolve with the world’s biggest challenges. For investors, the lesson is clear: purpose and performance are no longer at odds. The funds that marry domain expertise with disciplined execution will not only survive the current venture downturn, they will likely define the next era of growth.

How Venture Builders Reduce Startup Failure Risks

Startups often feel like walking a tightrope in a storm: one wrong step, one misstep in timing, market, or team, and everything falls. It’s no surprise that about 90% of startups fail overall. But in 2025, a different model is proving it can lower those odds: the venture builder. These are organizations that don’t just invest - they build. They nurture ideas, assemble teams, offer infrastructure, and walk alongside founders through early storms.

Here’s how venture builders are reducing failure risks - and what data and case studies show about their effectiveness.

The Stakes: Understanding Startup Risk

The numbers are stark. Many reports show failure rates over time are steep: roughly 10% of new startups fail within their first year, and between years two through five, majority of failures happen. By year ten, few survive. These aren’t just abstract stats, they represent teams who ran out of runway, misread market demand, or couldn’t piece together strong execution. That’s the baseline. Venture builders aim to shift those odds by intervening early on the common failure triggers.

What Venture Builders Do Differently

Venture builders provide what many startups struggle to assemble quickly: clarity of idea, team strength, operational support, and effective validation.

You can think of it this way: instead of solo founders trying to juggle everything - product, user-feedback, hiring, legal, finances - the builder supplies scaffolding. They often supply shared services (legal, HR, strategy), access to domain experts, and a process for iterating ideas before major investment. This means startups born inside builder models often avoid big, early mistakes.

There are multiple pieces to this, but one that researchers call out often is the capacity to test product-market fit before “going big.” Because builders usually demand early user feedback, safe prototyping, proof of concept. That early feedback loop weeds out ideas with weak demand.

Data & Case Studies: Proof in Practice

• Venture Studio Survival & Alive Ratios

A study called Big Venture Studio Research 2024 looked at hundreds of venture studios, hybrid builders, and corporate builders. They found that hybrid venture studios (those that combine venture studio activities with things like corporate building, accelerator, VC fund) have much higher survival rates: for every studio that closes, there are ~10.86 that remain alive. Corporate builders had ~9.3:1. Pure venture studios had lower survivorship: ~4.73:1.(That means builders which diversify or bring in hybrid functions tend to reduce risk further.

• Experienced Builders vs Novice Ones

McKinsey recently published findings in “The Three Building Blocks of a Successful Venture Factory” that more experienced venture builders are about twice as likely to achieve success compared to newcomer studios. Over time, with repeat efforts, their output (in revenue in fifth year) can be 12 times higher than that of novice studios. That suggests that venture builders don’t just reduce risk by the model - they get better at reducing risk as they build more companies.

• Corporate Venture Building vs Traditional Startup Paths

An article by CreativeDock noted that corporations using venture building (internally creating new startups or spin-outs) report success rates around 66% for their ventures, far above the 20-30% or so typical for venture capital backed startups or corporate ventures without structured building. They also say that venture building-born startups achieve better IRRs (~44% higher on average) compared to traditional startups, faster transitions from seed to Series A, and earlier exits (on average under 4 years) compared to 6-7 years typical elsewhere.

Human Stories Behind the Data

Consider a venture builder that continuously launches several projects per year. With the builder model, a given project might start not with a blank page, but with a research phase. Founders test assumptions: Is there demand? Can the technology or product be built affordably? Who is competition? These early experiments expose flaws early - low demand, wrong features - so adjustments are made before major investment.

Another important case is around the “business-building muscle.” McKinsey points out that entities that build many ventures develop repeated systems: standard ways to onboard teams, validate ideas, launch MVPs, spin-outs. Over time, they make fewer rookie mistakes - less duplicated effort, fewer misfires - so each new project starts from a stronger foundation.

What Failures Are Reduced

By virtue of these mechanisms, venture builders tend to reduce risk in several specific ways:

• Team risk: builders often match people with complementary skills rather than solo founders. They bring in domain experts early.

• Market risk: they test demand, refine product-market fit before big spends.

• Execution risk: shared infrastructure and expertise mean better supply chain, legal, hiring, finance practices early.

• Timing & capital risk: because builders tend to pace investment, control burn, and have staged funding, they avoid over-extension before product is solid.

These interventions don’t eliminate risk entirely. But they shift the risk curve substantially.

Broader Trends & What Investors Are Saying

Investors in 2025 say they want a higher floor - some guarantee of minimal failure, clearer paths from concept to growth. They like models where founders aren’t isolated. Where you can see how an idea was validated, how the team was assembled. Where overhead is shared and costs are lean early.

Corporations also find benefit: many large firms are adopting corporate venture building to create new growth engines. In one survey by EY-Parthenon, nearly 45% of executives from surveyed companies reported they have launched ventures in the last five years that now generate $100 million+ in annual revenue. Venture building gives them structure to do that.

Looking Ahead: What Makes a Builder Even More Robust

The data suggests certain traits make some venture builders better at reducing risk:

• Repetition: builders who launch many ventures learn faster.

• Hybrid or diversified models: studios that also do corporate venturing, VC funds, accelerators tend to have higher survival of their ventures.

• Strong validation early: demand testing before full build.

• Deep domain or technical competence: where builders understand industry/technology well, they avoid mis-positioning or under-estimating costs.

The Next Chapter

Startups will always carry risk. That’s part of what gives them upside. But a model growing in legitimacy in 2025 is one that doesn’t treat failure as inevitable, but as something to manage. Venture builders are showing how structured support, domain expertise, shared infrastructure, and repeated experience can tilt the odds in favor of survival.

For founders thinking of starting under a builder, the message is hopeful: you don’t have to brace for failure alone. For investors, it means better early signals, stronger teams, and less wasted cost.

In a world where capital is tighter and demands are higher, venture builders are proving to be more than trend - they might be the most reliable path through the startup storm.