This article was first posted on the Coentrepreneurship platform.

During the Collaborative Entrepreneurship (CE) Summit held last month, Wamda and Expo 2020 Dubai launched a first-of-its kind report that explores the current status of corporate-startup engagement in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The research assesses the number of corporations in MENA that are working with startups, and the depth of their engagement.

Findings from the report suggest that appetites for CE are moving in the right direction. More corporations are beginning to work with startups, and an increasing number want to launch formal programmes to strategically work with startups, but MENA has not yet reached its CE saturation point.

Interviews with 130 corporate executives and entrepreneurship ecosystem experts, along with a survey of 758 entrepreneurs in MENA for the report revealed that several fears on both sides are a barrier to strategic CE.

Executives primarily pointed to startups’ ‘high probability of failure’ as the main obstacle to launching more CE programmes, and entrepreneurs cited corporations’ long payment and sales cycles as key challenges for small companies.

The infographic below gives an overview of CE trends in MENA as well as the value corporations and startups hope to extract from their collaboration. It also highlights the impact CE has had to date on entrepreneurs and suggests next steps corporations and startups.