SHUAA Capital and Key Capital Launch Partnership to Build MENA's Venture Capital Secondaries Market
SHUAA Capital and Key Capital have announced a strategic partnership to develop the venture capital secondaries market across MENA and EMEA, positioning the two firms at the centre of what is arguably the most structurally underserved corner of the region's financial ecosystem.
Key Capital's debut vehicle, Key Fund I LP, is targeting $50 million and approaching its first close, having already executed two transactions. Structured as an ADGM Limited Partnership, the fund acquires positions in high-growth technology companies through off-cap-table transactions: deals conducted directly with existing shareholders rather than through the company itself. Because these transactions bypass the formal cap table process, they require no new fundraising round, no board approval, and no creation of new shares. An early investor holding a position in a scaled fintech or logistics company can exit cleanly, without disrupting operations or signalling anything about the company's capital position. The buyer gains exposure to a mature asset at a risk-return profile that primary rounds no longer offer.
SHUAA Capital, listed on the Dubai Financial Market and operating since 1979, will provide advisory support across capital formation, strategic relationships, and capital markets execution. Nabil Al Rantisi, Group CEO of SHUAA Capital, described the secondaries segment as "one of the most compelling and structurally underserved opportunities in the region today," adding that Key Capital brings a first-mover advantage his institution is positioned to amplify. For a first-time fund in an asset class most regional investors are still learning to evaluate, that institutional weight is as significant as the capital itself.
Basil Moftah, Managing Partner of Key Capital, was direct about the founding thesis: "Key Capital is built on the conviction that MENA's venture ecosystem has matured faster than its liquidity infrastructure. The time has come for a regional secondary strategy, providing a dedicated liquidity layer, supporting early stakeholders with structured exit pathways while enabling investors to access high-quality technology assets at a more balanced entry point."
The partnership arrives at a precise moment in MENA's venture cycle. The region's startups received $3.8 billion across 688 deals in 2025, up 74% year-on-year, according to Magnitt, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE attracting the bulk of that interest. The velocity of capital going in has not been matched by the infrastructure for getting capital out. The companies that received early funding between 2020 and 2022 are maturing: scaled, revenue-generating, and valuable on paper, but largely unexited. Founders, angels, and seed investors holding those positions have limited options beyond waiting for a liquidity event that regional markets have not reliably delivered.
In mature venture ecosystems, secondaries function as a circulatory system. When early investors can sell positions rather than hold indefinitely, they recycle capital into new early-stage bets, replenishing the funding pipeline for the next generation of founders. Seed funds with 2020 and 2021 vintage years that cannot show distributions will struggle to raise successor funds, quietly shrinking the supply of capital available to founders today. According to Dubai Future District Fund, early backers face a liquidity problem rooted not in performance but in duration: companies stay private longer, IPO windows are cyclical, and trade exits are lumpy, meaning capital can sit locked in winners for a decade or more while new founders and new technologies demand attention.
The alternative exit pathways have not delivered at the required scale. While companies including Gathern in Saudi Arabia, Tabby in the UAE, and MNT-Halan in Egypt are exploring near-term IPO opportunities, public listings in the region remain episodic rather than structural. The absence of a reliable exit mechanism also pushes founders toward premature acquisitions or forces them to accommodate late-stage investors offering earlier shareholders liquidity as part of a deal structure. A functioning secondary market removes that pressure without requiring founders to surrender control or compress the company's trajectory.
MENA has had almost none of this infrastructure. Isolated transactions have occurred, but no dedicated fund, no specialist manager, and no institutional-grade process for sourcing, pricing, and executing these deals at scale has existed in the region until now. Key Capital, regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of ADGM and founded by a team with over 29 years of collective investment experience, is the first firm in the region to carry that exclusive mandate.
