New Middle Eastern fund scaling regional creativity
Earlier this year, the chief executive of Valentino and Balmain’s Qatari owner, Mayhoola, launched an investment platform focused on emerging fashion and accessories (plus jewellery, beauty and lifestyle) brands from the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.
Alexandria-born Rachid Mohamed Rachid officially launched Switzerland-based Bidayat last spring. It is owned by Mr Rachid’s family office, Alsara Investment Group.
Investments range from $500,000 to $10 million for brands that generate less than $5 million in annual sales, the businessman told Vogue Business. If the “right idea” and the “right designer” were in place, however, Bidayat would also consider incubating nascent projects, he said.
The new platform’s first investment was a minority stake in Cairo-based leathergoods brand Okhtein, founded by sisters Mounaz and Aya Abdel Raouf.
On this initial project and the sisters, themselves, Mr Rachid commented: “They are breaking the boundaries of the image of what Middle Eastern women look like and act like. We are very blessed to work with female founders for our first investment. They are ready to show the world a modern face [of the region].”
Over the next year, Bidayat, led by chief executive, Tugba Unkan, expects to establish a portfolio of between seven and eight brands from across Italy, Egypt, France, Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Moving production to Italy is on the cards for all brands in the Bidayat orbit, Mr Rachid revealed. “When you look at some markets, you don’t have manufacturing capabilities, [so you take] just the product,” he explained to the fashion business publication.
The Mayhoola chief executive described his drive to support brands in and around the Mediterranean Basin as rooted in a "sense of mission”. His ultimate goal with Bidayat, he said, is to create globally relevant role models for regional designers: “I strongly believe that if we can add to the list of names in different parts of the region, it can create the critical mass that can start to accelerate the success rate of creativity in the region.”
Image: Okhtein via Instagram.
