• UAE-based VC FAST Ventures has launched FAST Foundry with a $3 million venture studio to back early-stage startups across MENA.
• Founded in 2023 by Waseem Afzal, FAST Ventures' new arm will target startups building adtech, retail, creator, AI and marketing products, pairing funding with product, marketing, AI and creator support through FAST Ventures’ ecosystem.
• With the new fund, selected startups will receive investment, workspace in Dubai or Riyadh, and access to Platformance, Lion, Calibrate, cloud credits and senior talent.

Press release:

FAST Ventures, the Dubai-based marketing holding company, has announced the launch of FAST Foundry, its investment arm and venture studio backed by a $3 million fund to support early-stage startups across the MENA region. The fund targets founders building the next wave of adtech, retail, creator, AI, and marketing products with global potential.

FAST Foundry combines investment with the full FAST Ventures ecosystem, giving startups access to specialist teams across products, marketing, creators, and AI. The goal is to provide founders with a clear and structured path from idea to early traction.

“We created FAST Ventures to address that – to build original, homegrown IP that understands this region deeply and can scale globally. FAST Foundry is the next chapter. We’re backing founders who want to create tools, platforms and products that redefine how marketing and growth work – built in MENA, for the world,” said Waseem Afzal, CEO of FAST Ventures.

The $3 million fund focuses on four themes where technology, culture and commerce intersect:

• AI-native marketing agents
• Retail and commerce media infrastructure
• Creator commerce and influencer infrastructure
• Emerging consumer verticals: fintech, proptech, traveltech and edtech

The fund aims to address a key issue facing young companies in the region: early-stage startups often stall when growth and revenues dip, even when the product is strong. FAST Ventures notes that roughly 90% of MENA startups fail within the first few years before reaching profitability, and that 43% struggle to build repeatable demand.

Selected startups will receive investment as well as workspace at FAST Ventures’ headquarters in Dubai Internet City or its offices in Riyadh. Through these workspaces, founders gain engineering and go-to-market support from multiple entities under the FAST Ventures umbrella.

This includes Platformance, a growth marketing platform delivering outcome-driven performance; Lion, its AI-creative studio; and Calibrate, an end-to-end digital commerce studio. Startups also gain preferred access to cloud credits and on-call senior talent across product, creative and commercial roles.

With FAST Foundry, FAST Ventures aims to unlock a new generation of marketing, AI and digital-commerce products built from the region for global markets.