Homegrown Ventures closes $22.8 million Fund I to back MENA consumer brands

We've closed Fund I at $22.8 million. Here's what it means for consumer founders in this region.

In April we completed the final close of Fund I, raising over $22.8 million for our debut fund and exceeding our $20 million target.

With it, Homegrown Ventures becomes the region's first purpose-built venture capital firm focused on consumer packaged goods and a new generation of locally built consumer brands.

Backed by a selective group of regional and international investors, the fund will target early-stage, better-for-you companies across food and beverage, health and wellness, personal and home care, and lifestyle categories.

A market hiding in plain sight

Our strategy targets a clear market gap. For decades, MENA's consumer economy was written by multinationals.

Products designed elsewhere and brands born abroad, distributed through channels that had little patience for local innovation. Meanwhile, an entire generation of MENA founders, people who understood the palates, the culture, the retail chaos and the opportunity, were building brands without a supporting ecosystem.

We created Homegrown Ventures to change that.

Not as an accelerator with a cheque attached, but as a specialist CPG firm built by people who spent decades inside the industry. Before founding this firm, we scaled portfolios at Unilever, Coca-Cola, Kraft and Mondelez, Nokia, Danone and Microsoft, then became founders and operators ourselves.

This is the fund that founders in this region never had. And now, it officially exists.

"With over 55% of the MENA population under 35, we are witnessing a structural shift that most investors are still sleeping on.

These consumers don't just want local alternatives, they are actively choosing them, demanding transparency, better ingredients, and brands that reflect who they actually are."

Nader Amiri, General Partner

Portfolio momentum

We deployed capital across five portfolio companies prior to final close, underscoring the growing momentum of the industry.

MENA's CPG sector has reached the same inflection point that regional tech hit 15 years ago, and as global supply chains tighten, we see long-term opportunity in supporting regional production and brands designed around local consumer needs.

Our early portfolio exemplifies that vision. PawPots provides pets with real, fresh food. Plaay makes indulgent, clean-ingredient chocolate with zero processed sugar for the health-conscious collective. Both are the kind of self-reliant, consumer-centric brands we exist to back.

"What separates Homegrown from everything else in this market is that when a founder sits across from us, they're getting partners who have negotiated with the same retailers, built the same supply chains, and made the same mistakes. That's an unfair advantage we pass directly to our founders."

Ahmad Shamieh, General Partner

What's next

Fund I will continue to seek and deploy capital into early-stage consumer brands across the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and select international markets, with a focus on food and beverage, health and wellness, personal care, home care and lifestyle products.

If you're building one of them, we'd love to hear from you.