Before it’s everywhere, it’s in FWDstart. Subscribe for $99 and save 17% on the first year to stay ahead.
Fancy seeing you here!
Off the back of our Money 20/20 Field Notes piece being surprisingly well received, and genuinely enjoyable to write, we’re making a habit of it with a new column every Monday, with the FWDstart podcast moving to Tuesdays.
Each week I’ll pick three stories I found especially interesting and have another crack at them with a bit more context, commentary and opinion than our normal news coverage affords.
This week, Qatar unexpectedly takes over startup discourse on X over the weekend, Pure Harvest’s Saudi sale offers a window into parastatal competition, and we explain the mechanism and rational behind MNT-Halan going public.
Jamie
Qatar goes viral
Qatar’s startup ecosystem, or more specifically Qatar Development Bank’s Startup Qatar Investment Program, was not something I expected to occupy quite so much real estate on my X timeline over the weekend.
And yet here we are.
For anyone hearing about this for the first time, the catalyst was a post from X user Suraj Sharma explaining that founders could receive up to $1.1 million with little more than an MVP, or as much as $5.5 million to move their startup to Qatar.
My initial reaction was cool to see Qatar on the timeline, but the crude AI-generated image and what I assumed, entirely without checking, would be deliberately and almost wilfully positive framing dissuaded me from digging much further.
But I’ll be damned if every single time I logged onto that app over the next 48 hours some variation of it wasn’t still there, slap bang at the top of my feed. It was quote-posted by advocates, sceptics, proponents, detractors, shit-stirrers and just about everyone in between.
When I opened Instagram only to find it there too, then received a Substack email seconds later with the same story as its headline, that took the biscuit.
I finally resolved that I was going to have to get to the bottom of this sudden bout of Qatari startup fever.
First things first, the programme isn’t new. It dates back to February 2024, although the amounts being touted have indeed increased since launch, from $500,000 to $1.1 million on the early-stage track and from $5 million to $5.5 million for growth-stage companies.
Second, despite my initial suspicions, this doesn’t appear to be the product of some well-orchestrated astroturfing campaign.
For those unfamiliar with the concept as it pertains to startupland
Start a seven-day free trial to keep reading
Unlock the full column, including why Qatar’s startup programme suddenly caught fire, what Pure Harvest’s Saudi sale says about parastatal competition, and what MNT-Halan’s Egypt IPO actually means for the wider group and its investors.
