BY Venture Partners closes $60M Fund III and opens in Lisbon to back AI-native founders

The Dubai-based early-stage investor has closed its third fund with a Dubai government-backed anchor and opened its first European office, in Lisbon.

BY Venture Partners, a Dubai-headquartered early-stage investor, announced on 29 October that it has closed its third fund at $60M. The fund is anchored by the Dubai Future District Fund (DFDF), with MultiLane, Transmed Capital and the Idriss Family Office (Saudi Arabia) also participating. According to the company, total assets under management, including co-investment vehicles, now exceed $200M.

What BY Venture Partners Fund III will invest in

Fund III will write cheques of up to $1M, mainly from pre-seed to Series A, into AI-native companies that rebuild enterprise workflows and aim to scale globally from day one. The company says it has already made 15 investments out of a planned 40, including PQShield, Cosyne, Isometric, Huspy and Invisible. It invests in more than 16 markets and says two-thirds of its capital has gone outside the Middle East and North Africa, mainly to North America and Europe.

Founding partner Ghaith Yafi said the fund “will back AI-native companies with global ambitions”, and that BY wants to invest more across Europe’s hubs, naming Madrid, London, Paris and Berlin.

The Lisbon office and why it matters for Europe

The European office comes with two local investment hires, according to the company. Partner Sohrab Jahanbani said European founders often struggle to reach international capital and commercial scale, and that BY aims to give them direct access to global networks and an operator-led team. His colleague Abdallah Yafi described Lisbon and the Iberian ecosystem as serious launching pads for AI and deep tech. IT Brief UK reports that the firm also wants to be more active in Spain, the UK, France and Germany.

The anchor investor is explicit about what it expects. DFDF’s managing director, Nader Albastaki, told Wamda that BY’s model works in both directions, bringing global AI companies into Dubai and taking regional founders abroad, and that DFDF will measure the partnership by that flow.

Founders investing in founders: the partners and the track record

According to the firm’s biographies, all four partners are repeat entrepreneurs. Abdallah Yafi chaired the strategy committee of Big Bus Tours and co-led its 2015 private equity sale, and holds an INSEAD MBA. Ghaith Yafi worked in investment banking and M&A at Houlihan Lokey, HSBC and Société Générale. Rami Jisr founded the advisory firm Broadgate Advisers and previously ran Bank Audi’s investment banking arm. Sohrab Jahanbani co-founded GoNabit, which the firm says was the first MENA e-commerce company to exit, selling to LivingSocial in 2011.

BY says Funds I and II produced four unicorns and returned “meaningful capital” to its LPs, and cites a Founder Net Promoter Score of 87. The release gives no names, return figures or survey details for these claims. Some of the track record is public: Invisible Technologies raised $100M in September 2025 at a reported valuation above $2B, and Onfido was acquired by Entrust in April 2024. For context, BY’s second fund closed at $50M in 2021.