Dubai: A global technology fund will be launched the middle of next year by Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA), the region's largest integrated technology park, a top official said.
"Some of the investments will be from ourselves, some from local and regional investors and also international investors," Ray Milhem, the new chief technology officer of technology investment at DSOA, told Gulf News.
He said, it will largely target companies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as well as global companies. The fund's amount has not been finalised.
The fund is a means to attract research and development and manufacturing companies to set up a base in Dubai Silicon Oasis.
"We are in the process of talking to a lot of companies to establish manufacturing here," Milhem said, adding they are also concentrating on start-ups.
"There are some very attractive start-ups in Europe and North America that we would potentially invest in and open a higher-engineering office here so they can write software," he said.
Earlier, the authority announced a budget of Dh25 billion set aside for investment in the coming years at DSOA. The whole project has already attracted foreign investments worth Dh1.4 billion. It has set aside about Dh500 million to invest in start-ups that will be spent over the next five years. Additionally, private investment into real estate at DSOA is Dh13 billion, while Dh10 billion is budgeted for the third phase of the project's development.
The authority is in talks with several companies and will make some decisions soon. "We hope by the end of this year or early next year, we will have some announcements about start-ups that we can invest in, in opening a design centre here," said Milhem.
