Press release:
BY Venture Partners, a global early-stage venture capital firm headquartered in Dubai, today announced the successful $60 million close of its third vehicle, Fund III. The fund is anchored by the Dubai Future District Fund (DFDF), with participation from established regional institutionals, corporate venture arms, and prominent family offices – including leading regional player in AI and high-speed data infrastructure Multi Lane, Transmed Capital, and the Idriss Family Office (KSA). Fund III expands BY Venture Partners’s total Assets Under Management (AUM) to over $200 million.
Empowering AI-Native Founders from a Regional Powerhouse
Fund III will invest primarily up to $1m at the Pre-Seed to Series A stages into AI-native companies that reimagine enterprise workflows and scale globally from day one.
Headquartered in the UAE, BY Venture Partners operates from a region embracing AI at pace. McKinsey’s November 2025 GCC survey found that 84% of organisations used AI in at least one business function, up from 62% in 2023. The firm invests across more than 16 international markets, with two-thirds of its capital deployed outside the MENA region across North America and Europe. Early momentum for Fund III is already underway, with 15 investments deployed to date out of a planned 40-company portfolio, including PQ Shield, Cosyne, Isometric, Huspy and Invisible.
"We are thrilled to officially announce Fund III today," said Ghaith Yafi, Founding Partner at BY Venture Partners. "The focus of this fund is to back AI-native companies with global ambitions. We are particularly excited about the opportunity to attract some of the world’s most innovative AI companies into the Middle East and connect them with the region’s rapidly growing technology ecosystem. We are executing on a thesis designed to generate strong, long-term returns for our partners.”
Institutional backing for regional impact
The anchor commitment from DFDF reinforces BY Venture Partners’s role in elevating the Middle East as a global tech hub and bridging regional capital with international deal flow.
"We committed to Fund III because BY's model works in both directions. It brings global AI-native companies into Dubai and takes founders from this region into international markets, and that exchange is what Dubai's Economic Agenda D33 asks of us. Ghaith, Abdallah, Rami, Sohrab and the team have built and exited companies themselves and have managed capital through a full market cycle. The flow of companies and founders across that bridge is the basis on which we will measure this partnership," said Nader Albastaki, Managing Director, Dubai Future District Fund (DFDF).
“We have been firm believers in BY Venture Partners since inception, and we are delighted to contribute to the firm's Fund III, to help back up-and-coming AI-first startups in the region,” said MultiLane Founder and CEO Fadi Daou. “As an ecosystem builder myself, as well as a former entrepreneur, BY’s vision fully aligns with ours.”
Rebuilding Ecosystems: The Lebanese Angel Investor Network (LAIN)
Rooted in a commitment to ecosystem building, BY Venture Partners won the MITAI-backed mandate to manage and operate the Lebanese Angel Investor Network (LAIN). LAIN connects global diaspora capital with early-stage Lebanese founders, creating a structured pipeline for early-stage capital and connecting the next generation of regional angel investors. Demonstrating its long-term commitment to ecosystem recovery, BY will reinvest 50% of its carried interest directly back into rebuilding the Lebanese startup ecosystem.
Built by Founders, for Founders
BY sets itself apart through its operator-first DNA: all four partners – Ghaith Yafi, Abdallah Yafi, Rami Jisr and Sohrab Jahanbani – are repeat entrepreneurs who built and exited businesses before joining forces as investors. This hands-on, founder-centric approach has earned BY Venture Partners a Founder Net Promoter Score of 87.
BY's track record has been built across more than one market cycle, including a full financial collapse in Lebanon, where Fund I carried significant exposure. That fund is still on course to return a strong multiple to its investors. The fund has had to adapt to fast-changing market conditions and has built a reputation for moving quickly to support founders in their most difficult and challenging days. Fund II continues to perform strongly relative to its vintage. Between them, the two funds have produced four unicorns, two from each, alongside a growing group of companies now valued in the hundreds of millions, and the firm has already returned meaningful capital to its LPs.
With Fund III, BY Venture Partners continues to leverage its global-first, AI-first network to give early-stage founders the operational edge, capital, and global connectivity required to build market-defining technology platforms.