The “Scality” program is pay-as-you-grow programme dedicated to startups in United Arab Emirates launched by Dubai Airport Freezone Authority (DAFZA). This program enables startups to not only grow, but also scale with a budget-friendly rate.
In order to be eligible for Scality program, startups should have a minimum viable product or market-fit solution that provides for MENA region (Middle East and North Africa).
Once a startup subscribes for the program, they will have their licensing fee and lease covered. In the same time, they will have access to office space. Not to mention that they can partner up with multiple entities across the globe.
Scality Program is supported by DAFZA and it currently covers a network of 1.800 companies.
“During 2020, MENA based startups saw an investment of $1BN. A trans-formative 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 United Arab Emirates 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.
Scality enables you to form your company and scale in a seamless, flexible, lean, and agile manner. This is done through a competitive pay-as-you-grow model. It is not only easy-to-use, but also flexible.
Now, start-ups can pay per-employee-per-month. This will enable them to optimize capital allocation. There will be a shift from a real estate focused model to a business setup. Thus, setting up in the UAE is as easy as signing up to that music streaming subscription with no minimum commitment.
Scality’s subscription-based program covers lease and licensing fees throughout the whole period. It also has the ability to scale team flexibly. It comes with 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 among others.
Through this program, Scality supports tech entrepreneurs to buill digital products & solutions across different industries, catering to MENA region. The reuqirement to be part of Scality is to either have an idea, MVP or a product.
Scality is backed by DAFZA, one of the leading and fastest growing free zones in the region. DAFZA’s network of 1,800 companies consists of some of the top fortune 500 companies. In this way, it will create a vast number of opportunities for synergies between startups.
“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.”