True Global Ventures 4 Plus (TGV4 Plus) Fund has closed its US$146m Follow on Fund. The Follow on Fund will double down on the TGV4 base fund investments, the likes of Animoca, Sandbox, Forge, Chromaway, CoinHouse, GCEX, and others. Interestingly 40 percent of the Follow on Fund was raised from partners in Middle East, India and Asia. Investment from Middle East partners was 3.4 percent of the 40 percent making their total participation 5 million USD. While portfolio companies such as GCEX, Enjinstarter and IoMob have established operations in Dubai UAE. TGV4 Plus has been partnering with MENA based investors including Cypher Capital and Crypto Oasis among others. 

Valerie Hawley, Affiliate Founding Partner, Middle East True Global Ventures 4 Plus , told LaraOntheBlock, “More than 40% of the Follow on Fund has been raised from partners based in the Middle East, India and Asia, of those 3.4 percent were from Middle East Partners in particular. This just goes to show the increasing importance this region has to play in the Venture Capital space.  Numerous portfolio companies from our base fund, GCEX, Enjinstarter and IoMob, have established operations in Dubai, and we expect many more to do so given the crypto friendly environment the UAE has established with the creation of VARA (Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority).”

The TGV4 plus Follow on Fund  whose 15 General Partners (GP), lead the fund and its Investment Committee, put in more than US$62m of their money into the fund. This is a total GP commitment of over 40% of the total fund size and over US$4m per GP on average. The first capital call of the fund has been fully paid in.

The TGV 4 Plus base fund invested in serial entrepreneurs leading globally ambitious Blockchain start-ups. It covers 20 cities in North America, Europe and Asia. The fund is dedicated to Web3 companies, primarily in late-stage Series A, B and C across 3 verticals: Entertainment & gaming, financial services, infrastructure & data analytics / Artificial Intelligence (AI).

It has invested in some of the leading Web3 companies such as Animoca Brands, The Sandbox, Forge, Chromaway, Coinhouse, GCEX, Chronicled and others. 

The new Follow on Fund will focus on investing a majority of its capital into selected TGV 4 Plus base fund companies. It might also invest in other late stage Web3 deals opportunistically.

“The base fund has been a fantastic success, but we are still only in the starting blocks of Web3. We believe that our early winners will grow even stronger and with the Follow on Fund, we give our partners an opportunity to invest more into these companies” says Fredrik Adolfsson, General Partner.

“After some years of growth, our best portfolio companies are looking to expand even further. We want to help and assist them with the Follow On Fund, as we are ready on the starting blocks, when many growth funds focus on regaining investors’ trust during this period”, says Konrad Wawruch, General Partner.

General Partner Dušan Stojanović adds, “We raised the money in record time in 4 months and we believe this is the best time to invest during market corrections. I would say that it is much easier to see more clearly who the winners are now. This has created a high level of confidence amongst our investors who have seen a large GP Commit and the first call being executed very quickly”.

UAE based ZelaaPayAE, with headquarters in Sharjah Tech Park and offices in Dubai, which works to integrate fiat and crypto payments utilizing Polygon Blockchain infrastructure, has now joined Visa’s Fintech Fast Track program for a period of five years, to speed up the process of integrating with visa while introducing crypto backed payment credential in the UAE and wider CEMEA region.

As per ZelaaPayAE twitter post, “In this 5-year long partnership with Visa, we are focused on growing across United Arab Emirates and KSA region. ZelaaPayAE shall continue to identify and develop payment products such as collateralized spending and more throughout the span of this collaboration.”

They add, “This accolade now enables us as a fintech provider to enable crypto-transactions using physical debit cards easier and accessible with over 70 million merchants that comprise Visa’s vast ecosystem. It will also allow us to innovate further and surf beyond just debit cards.”

“I have dreamt of making ZelaaPayAE a pioneering fintech startup in the UAE and one of the first movers towards providing alternative financial solutions to the end consumer in this region. By joining Visa’s Fast Track program, this will now be possible and our demographic reach will be limitless as we strive to push for adoption and further utility of payments through cryptocurrencies,” said Sahil Arora, CEO & Founder of ZelaaPayAE.

Alex McCrea, VP, Head of Strategic Partnerships and Ventures for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Visa, said: ““We’re delighted to welcome ZelaaPayAE to Visa’s Fintech Fast Track program and excited to work with them on the enablement of secure and seamless crypto payments in the UAE. We have no doubt the team at ZelaaPayAE will leverage access to the experts, technology and resources that the program allows to scale with efficiency and expand access to crypto payments.”

Recently ZelaaPay announced that that Cagau store in Dubai are now accepting cryptocurrencies at their store using Bitcoin, USDT, BNB, TRX through ZelaaPay’s XPOS powered by PundixLabs.  

ZelaaPay partnered with Lead Ventures in the UAE.

UAE Midchains has also partnered recently with Visa Fast track to offer the same services as ZelaayPay’s partnership with Visa. 

UAE Blockchain enabled LedgerFi, valuated at 6.3 million USD has just completed its seed round investment from a UAE private Fintech firm. As per their website LedgerFi which utilizes XDC blockchain network, wants to become the world’s first Decentralized Digital Asset Exchange ( DDAX) where users can transfer all types of digital assets.

LedgerFi IT Solutions is disrupting the traditional ways of exchanging digital assets, digital energy & digital property by enabling the users of Web 3.0 to adopt & adapt a peer-to-peer, censorship resistant and decentralized ecosystem. It is also extending the use case of transfer of digital assets beyond crypto currencies and enabling users with a seamless platform for exchange of emails, messages, data, files, information, digital currencies and even NFTs.

LedgerFi recently launched its flagship product called as LedgerMail which is the world’s first blockchain email service operating on a hybrid blockchain platform of XDC network. So far LedgerMail has onboarded more than 750,000 users and also partnered with big tech enterprises for secure, private & encrypted email communication.

Founder and CEO at LedgerFi, Mr. Vinay Krishna quoted, “We are thrilled to complete our Pre-Seed Investment round. Now we are working on benchmarking the Web 3.0 communication ecosystem and build a futuristic, simplistic and transformative ecosystem for the individuals and businesses.”

As per the pressrelease, LedgerFi will utilize this investment for catalyzing the technological development of new solutions which will complement the existing products, and LedgerFi will also operationalize its entity with business expansion in the UAE.

UAE Based Repton Family of Schools has partnered with Blockchain entity EduChain to create the region’s first K-12 blockchain-secured multimedia digital portfolio, Repton Passport. Students and alumni from the three Repton schools in the UAE – Repton Dubai, Repton Al Barsha and Repton Abu Dhabi will be able to safely receive, manage and share their academic and extra-curricular accomplishments via unique links, multiple platforms and social media.

The Repton Passport aims to archive every Reptonian’s school journey with a centralized collection of academic records, including transcripts, certifications, class pictures, awards and extra-curricular portfolios. In addition to the academic documents, Repton Passport creates a digital memory of student journeys and life lessons learnt. Students and alumni will be able to look back at their learning journey with pictures of proud moments, memorable experiences, meaningful friendships and personal videos from their teachers who nurtured and inspired them over the years.

The 2022 graduating IB2, IGCSE, and Year 6 cohorts from the Repton Family of Schools in the UAE, will receive their personalized Repton Passports at the end of the academic year, with their learning journeys at Repton carefully catalogued.

David Cook, Chief Education Officer for the Repton Family of Schools in the UAE and Headmaster of Repton School Dubai comments, “We are excited to gift Reptonians a permanent digital record of their unique life story while with Repton Family of Schools, providing them with the opportunity to revisit their very own digital time-capsule as young adults at Repton. The Repton Passport is a collection of meaningful journeys, encounters and experiences that shaped Reptonians’ characters and will provide them the tools to access their future success.  As we celebrate our 15th year anniversary at Repton Dubai, we are proud to have several graduating students who have stayed with us since they joined at 3 years old.   We are very pleased to work with EduChain Inc. to provide our students with a seamless digital solution that they can use Post-16 when applying to universities and prospective career opportunities.”

EduChain Inc. applications operate on top of an institutional blockchain network to ensure the security and verifiability of all issued records. EduChain Inc. is the trusted blockchain provider for top universities in the country such as Zayed University, Khalifa University and University of Sharjah, and has received various awards and recognition from Mubadala, CNN, Dubai Future Foundation and more. 

Gary Liang, Director of Educhain Inc. says: “We are proud to work with the Repton Family of Schools in the UAE to offer students a secure one-stop solution for their academic certifications. Our blockchain network is built on Hyperledger Fabric as a tamper-proof verification layer to independently store and verify the origin and legitimacy of data and records. With the Repton Passport, students can look back on their academic journey at Repton and trust that their documents will be safely secured.”

Niftify™, an easy-to-use and compliance-first NFT platform, is partnering with the Repton Family of Schools in the UAE to mint the animated Non-Fungible Token (NFT). Students receiving their Repton Passports by Term 3 this year will also receive their unique NFTs.

EnjinStarter, next generation Launchpad for Blockchain games and the metaverse, which is based out of Singapore, could be setting up base soon in UAE.

Prakash Somosundram CEO and Co Founder at EnjinStarter recently visited Dubai.  Nigel Hawley board advisor and a investor in True Global Ventures (TGV), which also recently invested 3 million USD in a series A round as a lead investor into Enjinstarter hosted the visit. EnjinStarter has received a total of 8 million in funding since its inception.EnjinStarter, built on JumpNet is enabling creators and game developers to run capital raising campaigns and build communities using blockchain tech. Not only do they issue tokens but provide game developers with a way to explore other innovative ways of raising capital including utilizing NFTs. They even have an incubation program, supported by an accredited partner network.

Concurrently the MENA gaming sector is one of the fastest-growing gaming markets in the world, with revenue across the MENA-3 (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt) reaching 1.76 billion in 2021.

Since late 2021 and early 2022, a lot of efforts and investments are moving towards a Blockchain enabled gaming sector. Abu Dhabi based, AD Gaming, an entity driving Abu Dhabi’s fast-growing gaming industry partnered with ATTARIUS Network, a UAE crypto and blockchain company, to bring blockchain solutions to the UAE game developers, with a focus on developing blockchain gaming, ATTARIUS Network to build an all-in-one NFT ecosystem for the gaming industry and digital artists.

Back to EnjinStarter, on the LinkedIN post Hawley stated, “What a great pleasure it was welcoming Enjinstarter, to Dubai. We had a fantastic week introducing Prakash Somosundram, CEO and Co-Founder and Shitij Gupta, CFO, to the Dubai ecosystem.  We started with some interesting metaverse and blockchain panel discussions at the Top CEO Conference and Awards.”

He adds in his post that insightful discussions were also held with UAE Crypto Oasis team represented by Saqr Ereiqat as well as the founders of MetaTerrace.

He notes in his post that the highlight of the discussions where the meeting with the Founder of UAE Based Cypher Capital, which launched in March its 100 million USD fund in Blockchain, crypto startups emphasizing those who have set up a base in UAE. As Hawley states, “Highlight was the fruitful discussions with Bijan AliZadeh, Founder and CEO of Cypher Capital.”

From the comments on the post, it seems likely that there is a good chance that EnjinStarter will be making Dubai as a base for its operations in the MENA region. Hawley adds at the end of the post, “We are looking forward to seeing EnjinStarter in Dubai on a more permanent basis going forward.”

Both Crypto Oasis and Cypher Capital have espoused their intentions to build the blockchain ecosystem in the MENA region. Crypto Oasis recently announced that there are 1000 blockchain crypto companies in the UAE. During Davos CryptoOasis which had targeted 1000 Blockchain and crypto entities by end of 2022, re assessed its aim given that already 1000 blockchain and crypto companies have set up base in the UAE. Crypto Oasis is now aiming to have 1500 Blockchain crypto companies set up in UAE by end of 2022, and it looks like EnjinStarter could be one of them.

In the crypto Oasis press release, Ralf Glabischnig, Founder of Crypto Oasis said, “This is an exciting time for us as we exceed expectations considerably month after month. Our target for the year has been achieved already and we’re anticipating exceptional growth in the future. The first months of 2022 have already shown that the key pillars of growing and building the Ecosystem are talent, capital and infrastructure. We believe we are still at an early stage but with the speed of development and growth that we see day by day across the community in this region, we look forward to further advancing the Blockchain economy in the Middle East.”

In the UAE today 53 percent of organizations active in the Blockchain space are native Blockchain entities, which mean their primary focus is blockchain technology, the rest are non-native blockchain organizations which means they offer services or product related to blockchain but not as their primary focus.

In a recent article Binance announced that it had enabled a Dubai Hotel to offer crypto payment facilities. The hotel in question is the Manor by JA resorts located in Al Furjan. As per the article the The Manor hotel is settling payments in BNB (Binance coin), Bitcoin and Ethereum through Binance crypto to crypto payment gateway.

As per Mohammed Hanif Al Qassim, Managing Partner of The Manor Hotel, “Virtual assets go in line with The Manor’s vision for sustainability and digital transformation, considering its position among top eco-friendly boutique hotels in Dubai.”

Richard Teng, Regional Head of MENA at the crypto-platform, “Binance has been actively engaging established local businesses and institutions to further increase the adoption of crypto for our users and the crypto community as a whole. Our partnerships with leading, innovative businesses, such as JA are in line with our vision to enhance crypto adoption across the region.”

Prior to this Property developers and Hotel managers such as DAMAC also announced they would be accepting crypto payments. UAE DAMAC Properties is accepting crypto payments either Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Even UAE Property firm Your place partnered with Utrust, a cryptocurrency payment solution designed to modernize the finance and payments industry offers clients the ability to pay for properties in Dubai UAE using cryptocurrencies.

Cheeze, rooted in the UAE, welcomes Ex Netflix Co-Founder Marc Randolph to its board of Directors. This comes after the completion of Cheeze’s second seed round where Randolph continued his investment.

As quoted on Forbes Randolph stated, “I am very excited about joining the Cheeze, Inc. board. The team Simon (Hudson, Cheeze CEO and Founder) is building is really impressive, and I am excited to see the progress they make,” Randolph said.

In March 2021, Cheeze Blockchain NFT photo application teamed up with UAE Based SRG Holding to develop minting studio for NFTs. Cheeze partnered with UAE based property developer to offer its engineering team a new base to develop and launch a new minting studio for NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Cheeze has partnered with Mohamed AlRafi, Founder of SRG Holding in the UAE, to start work on creating an engineering headquarters in Dubai and will continue to hire engineers over the coming months.

Cheeze was established in Silicon Valley in 2018. “Dubai is the perfect base to for a tech firm’s engineering team, with its record-breaking internet speed, advanced knowledge of Blockchain technology and contemporary working environments. AlRafi, who owns and operates a number of hugely successful businesses both globally and in Dubai, is now expanding his portfolio into the tech space by partnering with Hudson and investing in his company Cheeze,” a statement said. 

The Cheeze app will allow people to mint their photos into what are called NFTs, giving users the ability to trade and sell them on the blockchain. With a wide target demographic of photographers, collectors and consumers, the concept has been bolstered by the recent boom in the NFT space with sellers such as Beeple and 3Lau making millions of dollars.

The platform brings photography to the blockchain through the launch of NFT photo galleries. It enables anyone to purchase a photo gallery on its platform and lease out the space to photographers who want to showcase their collections. Cheeze is built on Flow Blockchain, where there are no gas fee charges for minting NFTs.

“Simon and his team have also shown that they are focused on providing true utility to people looking to bring their work to Web 3.0, and in an NFT environment where style seems to trump substance, this is a recipe for long term success, I’m very excited to be a part of this adventure and have a front-row seat as Cheeze figures out what this new world of Web 3.0 can provide.” added Randolph

BSV Global Blockchain Convention which commenced today in Dubai UAE is aiming to bring Blockchain back to Satoshi’s true vision and make it useful efficient and good.

Jimmy Nguyen, Founding President of BSV Blockchain, told attendees in his opening speech, “In the world today we are seeing too many coins, more than 10,000 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarket. We are seeing algorithmic stablecoins crash like in the case of Luna from Terra, with many of these coins being connected to crime. This is not the world I entered into when I started in Blockchain. Today we are here to start a conversation around building a world of Blockchain that is better. Build a world where Satoshi’s vision for BSV original protocol, one of P2P electronic payment transactions, and a data blockchain infrastructure useful for everyone. We are here to make the blockchain useful again.”

He goes on to state that the Satoshi vision was one of efficiency, honesty, a world of good. Bitcoin was created to address problems and issue a powerful data code and develop the internet protocol where it natively would send payments between devices without an intermediary.

Satoshi didn’t call this a blockchain, he called it a distributed time stamp server publishing transactions time stamped in a distributed manner.

Nguyen notes that BSV has demolished prior assumptions and hit 20 million transactions in April 2022, with blocks of 4GB of data. BSV is also the only blockchain that has the capacity to store NFTs on chain and yet he states this remains unmentioned unrecognized by others.

Nguyen believes that Blockchain and crypto should become more than speculative investing. He adds the world of scaling is currently not happening on Bitcoin because it is not being used for daily payments as this would create network congestion given that Bitcoin platform can only carry out 3-7 transactions per second, which is nowhere near the capacity of Visa or MasterCard that can carry out 50,000 transactions per second.

He explains, “At BSV Blockchain we have demonstrated 100,000 transactions per second, we have scaled and our network capacity is 4 GB per block which is 4000 times more than the capacity of the Bitcoin network. In April we demonstrated 2.4 million individual Bitcoin transactions in a single Block and this was Satoshi’s original design for Bitcoin. This is why Satoshi develop OP_PUSHDATA4, allowing users to send gigabytes of data in a transaction working to push to 4.3 GB of data in a single Bitcoin transaction.”

Scaling the blockchain is necessary to make it useful and inexpensive. The BTC network according to Nguyen is congested and transaction costs are high and unreliable, anywhere between 70 cents to 30 USD. Ethereum is not that better with average costs ranging from 3 USD to 70 USD and currently standing at 24 USD. This means minting an NFT on Ethereum costs 80 USD. On BSV it costs 1/100th to 1/20th of a cent, almost free. The goal is to get that number down to 1/1,000th of a cent  This is the way Satoshi had designed it adds Nguyen.

He explains, “Satoshi wanted people to be able to send small casual transactions over the internet, and that is why we are working with IPV6 internet protocol. The combination will create something formidable.”

In the MENA region BSV has already started its journey. Muhammad Salman Anjum Head of BSV Hub for MENA & South Asia stated, “We have launched our BSV MENA hub out of Dubai UAE and are developing partnerships with academia, governmental entities, the private sector, developers as well as regulators to push forward the adoption of Blockchain and BSV.”

BSV is working with several entities in the UAE including the Ministry of Energy, University of Sharjah, and UAE Department of Community, Dubai Police and others to build the research and development as well as knowledge base.

BSV MENA will also be promoting the launch of Women ambassadors in the upcoming months to encourage more women to enter the blockchain ecosystem.

While Ahmed Yousif, Lead of Government Initiative Middle East BSV Blockchain discussed the work BSV is doing with governments in MENA and how this relates to Smart Cities.

As he stated, “The MENA governments have a huge interest in use cases where blockchain can solve problems and the BSV task force is working with governments in KSA on Blockchain use cases for smart cities and Saudi green initiative. Bahrain government is also working on use cases in government on the infrastructure side.”

He gives an example of a use case in KSA where a Saudi diplomatic gated community, will be utilizing NFTs ( Non Fungible Tokens) in Riyadh KSA to encourage its residents to participate in green initiatives as part of the community.

He notes that the BSV journey in the region is just starting but BSV is here to disrupt the way we share data.