Maksab, a Digital Deal Making Platform for SMEs, Launches in Dubai

Maksab, a blockchain-enabled digital platform that aims to promote high growth opportunities via a virtual deal-making marketplace, has launched in Dubai.  The company notes that MENA based startups have raised over USD $659 million in the first half of 2020, a 35% increase compared to last year but the number of investment deals dropped by 8% for the same period, worst being the months of March and April.

Maksab states that an increase in later-stage investments with larger round sizes shows interest of investors in established companies rather than startups. Small and medium-enterprises (SMEs) in MENA have historically lacked access to traditional bank lending opportunities which only accounted for 7% of bank lending, the lowest in the world.

Citing the Arab Monetary Fund that SMEs make up 80% of businesses in the Arab region, only one in five has a loan or line of credit. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) estimates the SME funding gap in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to be around US$260 billion.

Maksab seeks to create a trusted deal-making network for global investors. The goal is for SMEs to provide a transparent private market. Maksab connects advisors and private professional investors with SMEs that are seeking growth capital in a virtual environment. The platform is developed for corporate finance consultants and transaction agents known as with  SME business owners and private investors.

Maksab is built using the Ethereum blockchain deploying ERC-20 smart contracts. Theses smart contracts are said to allow for Maksab tokens (MXAB) to be utilized on the network as a bridge currency and anti-spam mechanism to manage and close deals in a B2B environment.

In a release, Mohamed El-Masri, founder of Maksab, said by adopting blockchain as an underlying transaction protocol and using the internet’s existing communication protocols, they allow deal-makers to facilitate B2B transactions in a streamlined and more efficient way.

“The deals that would usually take 8 to 12 months to close, can now take weeks or even days,” said El-Masri. “Maksab platform creates an opportunity to widely address the significant funding gap that SMEs are facing. This mechanism has never been possible before in the history of private capital markets.”

El-Masri adds that, in the end, Maksab is all about community, where users can earn rewards in the form of MXAB tokens for their participation and support of SMEs.

 



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