‘Stars aligned’ for Palestinian startups, Gulf investors say
Entrepreneurs from the West Bank and Gaza recently visited Dubai to attend a conference on funding for new businesses.
About 20 Palestinian startups traveled to Dubai this week to the fourth edition of the International Conference on Entrepreneurship in Palestine (ICEP), to pitch their business ideas to investors.
ICEP attendee Christina Ganim is a co-founder of Kenz, a Ramallah-based e-commerce platform selling women’s intimate wear in the Gulf. “We’re actually raising an investment right now of $1.5 million in order to expand and dominate our current markets,” said Ganim, who has closed 15% of her company’s pre-series A round.
Saudi Arabia is her biggest target due to its high consumer purchasing power, established payment gateways, logistics and supply chains, said the businesswoman.
"We're particularly focusing on the Saudi Market because PayPal doesn't work in Palestine. They don't recognize Palestine as a country. … So how is our business even supposed to get set up and going when the largest payment gateway doesn't actually work? Or allow them to operate in a legitimate way, like all the other startups in the world?” she said to Al-Monitor.
