Dubai has been ranked number one among the Middle East and Africa’s top destinations in attracting venture capital from abroad. The global rankings were published based on the fDi Intelligence rankings that track venture capital flows.
fDi is a magazine that covers global investment activities and this is the first time fDi Intelligence has come up with such a listing.
London was the most favored destination for such investments, as well as the top sourcing city. Between 2010 and 2019, the City had the highest number of inbound (240) and outbound (210) greenfield FDI projects announced by private companies and financed by venture capital (VC) investors.
And in 2019, despite continuing doubts about Brexit, a “record” of $9.7 billion was invested in London-based startups, according to fDi Intelligence. New York was the second most popular destination, with 115 inbound investments in start-ups, followed by Singapore (113), Paris (99), San Francisco (65) and Berlin (63).
Western Europe is the leading source region for FDI in 2019, with $300.5bn in capital investment and the UK is the top destination for FDI in Europe, with a total of 1,271 projects in 2019.
According to the study, the US has replaced China with capital investment as the highest-ranked country for inward FDI while the number of FDI projects from China to the US dropped by 51%. Also, the number of FDI to projects in Africa increased by 49% to 998.
