On February 25, 2019, we, at Speed, were thrilled to announce that we raised new funding from the Central Bank of Lebanon to run our acceleration cycles for the next 3 years. Startups that will be joining our program will continue to receive the same high quality support for a reduced equity of 5% instead of 10%.

The funding round was led by the Central Bank of Lebanon through Blom Bank, Bank Audi, and BankMed, our new shareholders, who injected Circular 331 funds in the accelerator for the upcoming 3 years.

Founded in 2015 by Lebanese investment funds and entrepreneurship support organizations Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), Berytech Fund II (BFII), IM Capital, Lebanon For Entrepreneurs (LFE), and Bader, we ran 5 acceleration cycles, invested in 34 startups who raised more than $2.2M, and created 500+ jobs in Lebanon so far.

“With this new round of funding, we took the opportunity to update the accelerator’s brand identity, revamp our working space in BDD, and improve our startup offering by providing the founders with the same high quality acceleration program and financial support in exchange for only 5% equity in common shares, a better value for money than ever before”, said Sami Abou Saab, Speed’s CEO. “We would like to thank our founders (MEVP, BFII, IM Capital, LFE, and Bader) for being pioneers in the Lebanese entrepreneurship scene and for taking the risk of creating the first startup accelerator in Lebanon following the launch of Circular 331. We would also like to thank the Lebanese Central Bank and our new shareholders (Blom Bank, Bank Audi, and BankMed) for believing in Speed and in our ability to find and empower software startups in Lebanon. We are thrilled to have them onboard on this journey!”

Applications are open for our sixth acceleration program that will start in May. The deadline to apply is 22 March, 2019.

Please visit our new application page to apply

Apply now