UAE businessman Abdullah Saeed Al Naboodah has partnered with Israel's OurCrowd venture capital to form a $100 million (Dh367m) fund to back technology investments between the two countries. The venture is the first of its kind since the two countries normalised relations last month.
Phoenix Capital, the joint investment platform of Al Naboodah Group’s business development unit and Tel Aviv’s OurCrowd, will create an investment portal that enables Gulf investors to access OurCrowd’s portfolio of more than 220 companies in AgriTech, HealthTech, artificial intelligence and robotics.
Phoenix will also introduce OurCrowd to Gulf-based start-ups with the aim of raising investment through OurCrowd’s platform and assist Israel-based start-ups to find potential partners in the Gulf region.
The normalisation of relations between the UAE and Israel last month is expected to foster business deals and trade between the two countries.
Israel, a leader in AI – only behind the US and China – is a global technology hub, attracting $2.74 billion in venture capital investment in the first quarter of 2020, according to the Tel Aviv-based IVC Research Center.
Phoenix is "a two-way conduit for both Israeli and UAE investors", Mr Al Naboodah, chairman of Al Naboodah Group’s investment arm, said. The platform is geared for start-ups "seeking strategic, business and investment partners in these powerhouse tech nations", he said.
Phoenix has $100m in committed capital from Gulf investors that will target 25 to 30 different deals within the first year, the Financial Times reported.
OurCrowd, which includes former US Middle East peace envoy Jason Greenblatt, has over $1.5bn in committed funding across more than 200 portfolio companies and 22 funds.
"What was a trickle of contact and contracts before is now growing into a tsunami of ultimately billions of dollars of bi-lateral investment, joint ventures and joint venture creation and research," OurCrowd chief executive Jon Medved told The National.
"When two entrepreneurial countries like the UAE and Israel get together, just watch the sparks fly and real value get created."
The venture fund's UAE expansion will be led by Abu Dhabi private equity investor Sabah Al Binali, who has been newly appointed as venture partner and head of the Gulf region for OurCrowd.
Mr Al Binali was formerly the chairman of the investment and strategy committee of the National Investor and chief investment officer and chief executive of credit of Shuaa Capital.
The majority of OurCrowd’s deals are in Israel, but about 40 per cent of its deals have been done in the US, Canada, the UK, India, Hong Kong and Singapore.
OurCrowd has over 50,000 members who are individually accredited and institutional investors. Members also include family offices and venture capital partners from over 183 countries to invest alongside the fund at the same terms.
Mr Medved founded OurCrowd in 2013, after three decades as a serial entrepreneur and seed investor in California and then Israel.
The fund’s portfolio is diversified across different technology-driven sectors and stages, ranging from seed to early equity-based financing in companies that are not publicly listed yet. Uber, Canon, Oracle, Nike and Intel have acquired OurCrowd portfolio companies.
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Ten tax points to be aware of in 2026
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
Businesses should continue preparing for the implementation of e-invoicing in the UAE, with 2026 a preparation and transition period ahead of phased mandatory adoption.
3. More tax audits
Tax authorities are increasingly using data already available across multiple filings to identify audit risks.
4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
5. Greater emphasis on statutory audit
There is a greater need for the accuracy of financial statements. The International Financial Reporting Standards standards need to be strictly adhered to and, as a result, the quality of the audits will need to increase.
6. Further transfer pricing enforcement
Transfer pricing enforcement, which refers to the practice of establishing prices for internal transactions between related entities, is expected to broaden in scope. The UAE will shortly open the possibility to negotiate advance pricing agreements, or essentially rulings for transfer pricing purposes.
7. Limited time periods for audits
Recent amendments also introduce a default five-year limitation period for tax audits and assessments, subject to specific statutory exceptions. While the standard audit and assessment period is five years, this may be extended to up to 15 years in cases involving fraud or tax evasion.
8. Pillar 2 implementation
Many multinational groups will begin to feel the practical effect of the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT), the UAE's implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax under Pillar 2. While the rules apply for financial years starting on or after January 1, 2025, it is 2026 that marks the transition to an operational phase.
9. Reduced compliance obligations for imported goods and services
Businesses that apply the reverse-charge mechanism for VAT purposes in the UAE may benefit from reduced compliance obligations.
10. Substance and CbC reporting focus
Tax authorities are expected to continue strengthening the enforcement of economic substance and Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting frameworks. In the UAE, these regimes are increasingly being used as risk-assessment tools, providing tax authorities with a comprehensive view of multinational groups’ global footprints and enabling them to assess whether profits are aligned with real economic activity.
Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
Oscars in the UAE
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Prophets of Rage
(Fantasy Records)
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
Ain Dubai in numbers
126: The length in metres of the legs supporting the structure
1 football pitch: The length of each permanent spoke is longer than a professional soccer pitch
16 A380 Airbuses: The equivalent weight of the wheel rim.
9,000 tonnes: The amount of steel used to construct the project.
5 tonnes: The weight of each permanent spoke that is holding the wheel rim in place
192: The amount of cable wires used to create the wheel. They measure a distance of 2,4000km in total, the equivalent of the distance between Dubai and Cairo.
