Dubai Founders HQ announces no fee for startups; 1,500 members onboarded in 50 days

Dubai Founders HQ, an initiative launched to strengthen the emirate’s startup and small and medium enterprise (SME) ecosystem, has onboarded around 500 startups and 1,500 members in just 50 days of its launch, officials said on Thursday.

In an interview with Khaleej Times, Ahmad Alroom, acting CEO of Mohammed bin Rashid Establishment for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (Dubai SME), said the mandate is to look predominantly at all Dubai-based companies that have the potential to use the emirate as their launch pad to the rest of the world.

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He said there is no fee for startups coming to Dubai Founders HQ — which is located in 25Hours Hotel One Central — as of now.

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“Startups don't pay a fee. For now, it's open to all, but based on our eligibility criteria. We will likely introduce, at some point in time, a membership model, but the fees will be nominal,” he said.

Spread over 20,000 square feet, the initiative is a joint venture between Dubai Economy and Tourism and the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy.

Launched by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE, and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai, on October, it will play a key role in enhancing the city’s startup ecosystem and play a central role in Dubai D33’s agenda of having 30 unicorns by 2033 and double the size of the economy.

In terms of eligibility criteria, Ahmad Alroom said, there are two angles.

“We support local businesses here, and there are international companies that we want to leverage, or to use Dubai Founders HQ, as their entry point into the ecosystem. For international companies, we're looking to give a centralised place that they can go to, and then we can refund all of them out into the rest of the ecosystem.

"We streamline the soft landing process for them in Dubai. We'll work with any of the international companies that are looking to redomicile or to set up some sort of presence in Dubai. Once they're part of the Dubai Founders HQ network, their soft landing experience becomes easier because they also gain the entire kind of network of partners that we can bring to the table,” he added.

Supporting 582 firms in 9 months 

Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy has supported 582 companies in the first nine months of 2025, and 21 per cent of them are related to artificial intelligence, said Saeed Al Gergawi, vice-president, Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy.

While commenting on the initial response of 500 companies in just six weeks after the establishment of the Dubai Founders HQ, Al Gergawi said they’re “happy, but not satisfied”.

“There is a strong demand as companies that are calling Dubai home are increasing. This is just the beginning; we're looking to further enhance the Founders HQ for those who want to start a business,” he said.

Dubai startups going global

Alroom hoped that the local startup success stories will emerging from Dubai Founders HQ on a global scale.

“We want businesses that are not just building for Dubai, there are building for the rest of the world and have the potential to scale. We don't want to put too much emphasis on the sectors specifically. There are, of course, priority sectors where we've seen a lot more momentum across Dubai, and we'll work with companies in those sectors. We will also look at upcoming sectors where smart money is starting to come into, and we can support,” he said.

“We have now onboarded roughly 500 startups and 1,500 members, including budding entrepreneurs who need early support in order to scale. We focus on scaling the platform and enhancing the layer of foundational support that we can provide to companies. This means putting more investment into our learning platform, trying to embed more sector-specific content to founders that they can find useful, making sure that we are kind of increasing the level of events,” said Ahmad Alroom, acting CEO of Mohammed bin Rashid Establishment for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (Dubai SME).

He said they’re also looking at other initiatives on how to grow the funding landscape overall in Dubai. “We really rely on the partners that we have, whether it's the VC community, other institutional investors, the banks and so on, to kind of either co-own some of these initiatives for us, or to help us get some of these scaled and launched,” he added.

• Dubai

Waheed Abbas

waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com

Waheed Abbas is Assistant Editor, covering real estate, aviation and other business stories that directly affect the lives of UAE consumers. He frequently reports human interest stories, too.