• The Dubai Airport Freezone Authority (DAFZA) has launched a pay-as-you-grow programme “Scality” for startups in the UAE, enabling them to grow and scale at a budget-friendly rate.
• Eligible startups must have a minimum viable product (MVP) or market-fit solution that caters to the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region.
• The subscription-based model covers lease and licensing fees for startups, while offering them access to office spaces as well as the opportunity to partner with different entities across different verticals.
• Scality is backed by DAFZA, which boasts a network of 1,800 companies.

Press release

Over 2020, MENA based startups saw $1BN+ invested. A transformative year for the technology sector as digital adoption accelerated at unprecedented rates and transacting online became the only way to acquire goods and services.

In 2020, the UAE saw a total of 129 startup deals take place, which amounted to $579M in funding. Despite this trend, there is still potential to provide simpler business setup for startups in the UAE 

The Dubai Airport Freezone Authority (DAFZA) officially launched a one-of-a-kind innovative start-up program called “Scality”, solving a core problem faced by start-ups of requiring high initial capital to setup and scale their business.

As a flexible and easy-to-use launchpad, Scality enables you to form your company and scale in a seamless, flexible, lean, and agile manner, via its competitive pay-as-you-grow model.

Start-ups can now pay per-employee-per-month, enabling them to optimize capital allocation moving away from a real estate focused model to business setup. Setting up in the UAE is now as easy as signing up to that music streaming subscription with no minimum commitment thereby de risking the journey into entrepreneurship

Scality’s subscription-based program covers lease and licensing fees (during setup and the lifecycle of company operation), ability to scale a team flexibly, a modern workspace with like-minded individuals and a suite of partnerships enabling startups to grow and scale their business These include partners across tax, legal, talent, cloud solutions, banking partners, payment providers, digital marketing amongst others.

Through this program, Scality is focused on supporting tech entrepreneurs building digital products & solutions across different industries, that cater to the MENA region. Entrepreneurs are required to either have an idea, MVP or product, to be part of Scality.

Scality is backed by DAFZA, one of the leading and fastest growing free zones in the region. DAFZA’s network of 1,800 companies consisting of some of the top fortune 500 companies create an array of opportunities for synergies between startups building innovative products that corporates are eager to adopt.

“Scality is a membership program specifically built for the tech startup and entrepreneur, providing you with everything you need to setup and grow your business through a simple, flexible membership fee structure per employee per month. With the onset of Covid-19, you need to focus on growing your business flexibly and Scality is here to enable it.

Not only do we focus on your bottom-line cost-efficient approach, Scality also provides you with access to a wide network of potential buyers and suppliers, to build and grow your topline.” said Hassan Waheed, Chairman of Scality.

Scality aims to be a partner in growth from inception to scale and is committed to solving the key problems entrepreneurs face in the MENA region, thereby enabling ease of access to a significant population in an emerging market.

Lee Mc Mahon, Co-founder of Clara Technologies, a leading ecosystem enabler in the legal tech landscape said “Scality is an innovative, flexible and much needed solution to help startups set up their business effortlessly in the UAE. With Covid-19, it has become more important to offer startups an ability to scale in a cost-effective pay-as-you go style arrangement, with transparency and ease of process. Scality focuses on achieving that as a core value proposition.”