BeyondCapital Kicks Off Jordan's Pioneering Scout Program

Jordan has just launched its first Scout Programme, on April 30^th, which will focus on supporting early-stage businesses across the country, supported by USAID-funded initiative BeyondCapital in an effort to build investment management capability and unleash potential in the local ecosystem. The Scout Programme will enable a select pool of individual Scouts to make small ticket investments into exciting opportunities within their various areas of expertise.

“We all see opportunity in different ways," says Tamer Al-Salah, managing director of BeyondCapital. "A key part of the Scout Programme is about getting people with a new and different lens on board to source investment opportunities in areas such as creative industries, disruptive technologies and academia as well as opportunities that encourage and support Jordan’s youth and enable economic development in areas outside of Amman.”
 

But this is not the first time a Jordanian initiative considers expanding their efforts away from the urban centre. Earlier last month, Injaz Al-Arab announced a new strategic collaboration with Google Arabia, supported by a $1 million grant from Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org; under the title Maharat min Google, Google and Injaz Al-Arab joined forces on April 16^th to roll out in-person training to 100,000 students across 14 countries in MENA focusing on youth in underprivileged and rural areas. According to the World Bank, Jordan's main challenge is to stimulate job-generating growth. Tight fiscal and monetary policies are expected to continue as Jordan works towards fiscal sustainability and a lower debt-to-GDP ratio. 

The pioneering Scout Programme will incorporate a unique matching capital component by requiring Scouts to help investee companies to find angels and institutional parties to co-invest alongside BeyondCapital, thereby building, educating and promoting a vibrant investor community in Jordan and beyond.

“The programme has identified exceptional individuals with a genuine desire to give back to their communities all of whom are truly able to add value well beyond just the capital they invest,” adds Emile Cubeisy, managing partner at Silicon Badia. “With this in mind, we’ve designed a streamlined and frictionless investment process to enable the Scouts we’ve selected to get out there and help great ventures grow.” 

Main image: Beyond Capital