Today, we are proud to announce a formal co-investment and strategic partnership between Sooiv Capital and Battery Ventures. This partnership formalizes a relationship that began in early 2025 when the two firms collaborated on their first shared portfolio investment, and it creates a new institutional pathway for the most ambitious MENA founders to access global growth-stage capital without sacrificing their regional roots.

Battery Ventures is one of the most respected technology-focused venture firms in the world. Founded in 1983 and with offices across the United States, Europe, Israel, and Asia, Battery has backed some of technology's most enduring companies across infrastructure software, consumer internet, and enterprise applications. Their portfolio includes companies that have defined entire software categories, and their team brings decades of experience guiding founders through the complex transitions from regional champion to global company.

Why This Partnership Matters for MENA Founders

The most common challenge we hear from MENA's most ambitious founders is not access to seed capital — the ecosystem for that has improved dramatically over the past three years. The challenge is what comes after: the transition from a company that is dominant in one or two MENA markets to a company that can credibly compete in global markets or attract the growth-stage investors who will fund the next phase of scale.

This transition is difficult for structural reasons. MENA-born companies often lack the relationships and visibility with global investors that would naturally come from being headquartered in San Francisco, London, or Tel Aviv. They face genuine uncertainty about which global investors understand their market well enough to add value beyond capital. And they must navigate the cultural and operational differences between building for MENA's distinct market context and meeting the expectations of investors whose reference points are drawn from entirely different geographies.

Our partnership with Battery Ventures addresses this directly. Battery's team has committed to providing MENA market context, direct support with international go-to-market strategy, and introductions to their portfolio network for companies that Sooiv and Battery jointly invest in. In return, Sooiv provides Battery with deal flow from the region's most exceptional seed-stage companies — companies that might otherwise not appear on their radar until significantly later in their development trajectory.

The Investment That Started the Relationship

Our first collaboration with Battery was the co-investment in Fawri Pay, the Amman-based embedded finance platform that Sooiv led in January 2025. Battery participated in that round alongside Sooiv, and the experience of working together through the investment process confirmed that the two firms' approaches to founder partnership were genuinely aligned.

Both firms share a conviction that the best venture investors add value primarily through quality of relationship rather than quality of advice — by being the partner founders call first, not the partner founders feel obligated to update quarterly. Both firms have a strong preference for concentrating support on a smaller number of companies rather than spreading it thin across a large portfolio. And both firms believe that the most important test of a successful investment is not the multiple on invested capital but the durability of the company that emerges.

What This Means Going Forward

The practical implications of the partnership are straightforward. For companies in the Sooiv portfolio that demonstrate exceptional traction and a credible path to global scale, Battery will have the opportunity to lead or participate in their Series A or later rounds. This is not a guarantee — Battery applies the same rigorous standards to every investment decision — but it means that the founders in our portfolio will have a warm, context-rich introduction to one of the world's best technology investors at the moment when that introduction is most valuable.

For Sooiv's ability to attract the best founders, this partnership is also meaningful. The founders who are most likely to build category-defining companies in MENA are precisely the founders who are thinking about global ambition from the earliest days of company formation. Knowing that the path from Sooiv seed investment to Battery growth investment exists — and that it does not require the founder to navigate a cold introduction process — reduces the cost of choosing a MENA-focused seed investor rather than a globally branded one.

"We have watched MENA's technology ecosystem mature rapidly over the past decade. Sooiv's focus on the region's seed stage, combined with their founders-first approach, makes them the natural partner for connecting MENA's best early-stage companies with Battery's global network." — Battery Ventures, August 2025

Looking Ahead

This partnership is one element of a broader strategy at Sooiv to build the connective tissue between MENA's increasingly sophisticated seed ecosystem and the global venture capital community. We believe the founders building the most important technology companies in the region deserve access to the best partners at every stage of their journey — not just at the earliest stage, where we specialize, but throughout the decade-long process of building something that lasts.

We will be sharing more details about how the partnership will operate in practice in the months ahead. In the meantime, if you are a MENA founder thinking about your Series A and want to understand whether the Battery relationship might be relevant to your journey, please reach out. These conversations are always worth having early.