Tamkeen scaleup showcase puts Bahrain’s high growth founders in the spotlight

The Labour Fund Tamkeen used Global Entrepreneurship Week 2025 to send a clear signal to Bahrain’s high growth founders. At a scaleup focused event in Manama attended by Industry and Commerce Minister Abdulla bin Adel Fakhro, Tamkeen Chief Executive Maha Abdulhameed Mofeez and Bahrain Development Bank Group Chief Executive Dalal Al Qais, success stories from across the Kingdom took center stage alongside investors who are actively backing regional winners. Bahrain Development Bank is a core part of that story, sitting at the intersection of public policy and growth capital. 

The event brought investors such as STV, BECO Capital and MEVP together with founders from Bahraini scaleups including Eat App, Flooss, Lola and Remote Apps. According to Bahrain This Week’s coverage, the investor panel explored priorities, funding opportunities and growth strategies, while the founders shared how they are expanding from Bahrain into regional markets. 

The timing of the event matters. During the same Global Entrepreneurship Week, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce launched the National Innovation Strategy 2025 to 2035 at the American University of Bahrain. The strategy aims to position Bahrain as a leading regional hub for innovation and to raise research and development investment to 2 percent of GDP by 2035, while training more than six thousand Bahrainis in innovation related fields. 

Financing tools are also catching up. Earlier this month, Bahrain announced a new SME Fund with a total value exceeding 185 million US dollars, managed by Bahrain Development Bank in partnership with the National Bank of Bahrain, Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait and Al Salam Bank. The fund provides Sharia compliant financing with repayment terms of up to five years, with Tamkeen covering up to 50 percent of the profit rate, lowering the cost of capital for growing small and medium enterprises. 

Bahrain’s startup ecosystem has already proven its potential. According to the 2024 Global Startup Ecosystem Report, local startups generated around 1.2 billion US dollars in ecosystem value between July 2021 and December 2023, with fintech driving much of the funding. That momentum is now being matched by targeted initiatives from Tamkeen, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Bahrain Economic Development Board, and by more sophisticated conversations about growth metrics, unit economics and cross border expansion. 

Maha Abdulhameed Mofeez has previously summarised the mindset behind this push, noting in a 2022 interview that “startups are catalysts for growth in any economy, they provide employment opportunities, drive innovation and advance technology,” in comments reported by GCC Business News. The scaleup event builds on that view, shifting the focus from early stage encouragement to helping proven Bahraini companies grow responsibly, raise larger investment rounds and create deeper local jobs.

For founders, the next move is simple. Review the SME Fund terms, stress test your growth metrics against the investor expectations shared during Global Entrepreneurship Week and speak with partners like Tamkeen, Bahrain Development Bank and Bahrain Economic Development Board about how your expansion roadmap fits into Bahrain’s wider innovation strategy.