The global focus on investing in cleantech approaches to energy, and in turn diverging away from oil and gas, has not been lost on GCC territories with deep roots in traditional industry and infrastructure, such as Saudi Arabia. While there has indeed been a global boom in the number of sites in which sources such…
Chinese overseas investment has recently begun to branch out from their traditional preferred sectors – energy, real estate and infrastructure – and into a variety of other sectors, including technology. Chinese investors have recently turned their attention to Indian startups and the Indian tech sector. According to Jessica Wong, investment director at mobile advertising firm…
With its shaky home economy going down over the past few years, China has been working on re-inventing itself by increasing foreign investments. Since 2010 Chinese investors have been financing a high number of American and European tech start-ups such as Uber and AirBnB. Another market China has been tapping into over the last few…
As its economy has been slowing down at home over the past few years, China has been working to increase its exposure to growing foreign markets. Chinese investors have been focusing their funding on booming regions and sectors across the world. The United States and its extremely innovative tech market has received $ 15 billion…
Tech companies around the world are among the many businesses benefiting from the recent flood of Chinese overseas direct investment. Tsinghua Holdings, a Chinese state-owned company, has recently disclosed an investment in Marvell Technology Group, a chip maker based in Silicon Valley. Although the size of the investment has not been specified, Tsinghua reported the…
The meteoric rise of fintech has left many traditional financial institutions lagging behind in terms of technology – and many banks have chosen to see this as a threat. In a 2015 survey by PwC, 83 percent of financial services professionals indicated that they were concerned about losing business to new fintech startups. The fintech…
Today, an estimated two to five percent of global commerce takes place online. However, for many businesses, embracing the increasingly digital nature of business has been far more easily said than done. Businesses outside of the tech sector are often burdened with legacy systems and outdated methods of information processing. This results in a direct…
Last year, cyber attacks cost businesses an estimated 400 billion USD per year, according to British insurance company Lloyd’s. The estimate includes not only direct damage but also the disruption to business following the attack – because often, it is not the attack itself that causes the most damage, but its aftermath, which can drag on…
The GCC, or Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman) has many advantages as a tech market. Its benefits include its comparatively high proportion of youth, and its strategic location – Dubai, which is emerging as the regional tech hub, is within a four-hour flight radius of one-third…
The Middle East is a region known for its high liquidity and its concentration of high-net worth individuals – and not for its tech sector. This is mainly due to the fact that the regional tech sector is underdeveloped. Entrepreneurship is hindered by complicated regulations and restrictions, bureaucracy, geopolitical and economic instability, and the lack…