Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy Puts Seven Startups in Front of Oraseya Capital
Founders pitched Oraseya Capital's investment team and SANDBOX programme representatives, and several moved ahead in the fund's assessment.
Karim El-Sayed Karim El-Sayed covers company news, policy and regulation across the UAE and wider MENA for Anecdoted, with a focus on how new rules and licences reshape how startups operate. karim@anecdoted.com
Seven technology startups presented their businesses to Oraseya Capital's investment team in a pitching session arranged by the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy to put early-stage founders in front of potential backers.
The chamber brought the founders together with Oraseya Capital's investment staff and representatives of the SANDBOX Investment Program, the vehicle the firm uses to place smaller cheques alongside mentorship.
What the seven companies do
The startups were Arakan, Duno, YOUNEA, Riayatech, Avelin, SENSI and Cogniver. Between them they cover business compliance, lending intelligence, artificial intelligence, health technology, digital scent and enterprise automation.
Each founder walked through the company's business model, its product and its plans for growth and expansion. They also received feedback on how Oraseya evaluates deals and what the fund asks of the companies it backs.
A number of those taking part moved forward to a later stage of Oraseya Capital's assessment, Dubai Chambers said.
“We are focused on providing practical and effective pathways that enable technology startups to connect directly with potential investors and access capital and expertise that can support their growth and expansion,” Saeed Al Gergawi, Vice President of Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy, said.
The fund behind the session
Oraseya Capital, the venture investment unit of Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority, or DIEZ, manages a AED500 million fund aimed at technology startups from pre-seed to Series B.
Ticket sizes under SANDBOX run from AED550,000 to AED11 million. The programme pairs that money with mentorship and investment-readiness support, an arrangement its senior partner frames as the point of the exercise.
“We believe startup funding delivers greater impact when combined with expertise, guidance, and access to an investment ecosystem that supports business growth,” Julien Plouzeau, Senior Partner at Oraseya Capital, said.
The chamber's part in the session was to make the introduction and open the room. Any decision to write a cheque rests with Oraseya, and the criteria were spelled out to the founders directly rather than passed along secondhand.
That distinction matters in a market where early-stage teams often spend months chasing warm contacts. A single afternoon of scheduled pitches with the people who sign off on deals compresses that process, even when no money changes hands on the day.
The fund's remit runs from pre-seed to Series B, wide enough to take in the earliest teams in the room as well as companies already booking revenue. For the seven, the practical next step is Oraseya's evaluation process, which several have now entered.
