Hassan Haidar, the managing director of the MENA fund for 500 Startups, 500 Falcons, announced Wednesday the closing of their fund at $15 million. They have a target of $30 million.

“While we have been investing in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region since 2011, including 55 deals in 32 companies for a total of $6M, this is our first fund focused entirely on the Arab world,” he said in his blog post on their site.

“With this new fund, we plan to invest in approximately 100-150 companies with about half of the fund and reserve the other half for follow-on investment in the top 20% of companies. The fund will focus on early-stage startups in the MENA region, MENA diaspora founders and non-MENA founders targeting MENA.”

The MENA team

Sharif El-Badawi, formerly with Google, and the chairman of the leading global non-profit bridging MENA entrepreneurs with Silicon Valley, TechWadi, has joined the team as a partner for 500 Falcons.

They are also actively recruiting for their team in the region, with plans to have people on the ground in our key markets such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan amongst others.

Image, not of a falcon in the Middle East, via Wikimedia Commons.