New Delhi, June 22 -- Saudi Arabia-based Palm Ventures, an early-stage venture capital platform focussed on the Middle East, has roped in a former partner from another local VC firm Propeller for its leadership team.

The investor, which is in the market to raise capital for its debut vehicle targeting a corpus of $30 million (around Rs 284 crore), has added Manaf Asfour as General Partner.

Asfour, who previously was making Jordan and Saudi Arabia-centred bets, has a decade of experience across the investment lifecycle including fundraising, deployment, portfolio management, founder support and exits.

"Manaf's addition strengthens Palm Ventures' commitment to backing exceptional early-stage founders across MENA and supporting them with capital, strategic guidance, and access to a high-quality regional and global network," Palm Ventures said in a post on Linkedin.

At Properller, where he had been working since 2017, Asfour was a part of the team that raised two funds from institutional and individual limited partners, and deployed capital into 37 early-stage companies across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Egypt, the UK and the US. Currently, he also serves as an independent board member at UWallet, a subsidiary of Bahrain's Byon Umniah.

Asfour previously held roles in corporate finance and investment banking, and has an MBA from IE Business School in Madrid.

"His track record includes multiple successful exits across the region and beyond, including POSRocket, ZenHR, Lawhive, and TachyHealth," Palm Ventures said.

Palm Ventures, which has presence in Riyadh and Jeddah, focusses primarily on early-stage business-to-business software and fintech startups in the Middle East and Africa region. It was founded in 2014 by Yassir Nasief and Redwan Abudawood as a business unit under a consultancy firm, and evolved into a standalone company in 2021.

The fund marked the first close of its debut vehicle last year in February, focussing on early-stage startups across MENA with a strategic allocation for US-based AI opportunities. The fund intends to back 40 companies in the region.

It also has a separate mini-fund that invested in four US-based AI startups in partnership with Cartography Capital.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.