DISPLAYING ITEMS BY TAG: Capital

Upon the request of the Securities and Commodities Authority (“SCA”), you are invited to participate in the development of a centralised database for venture capital funding and investments data as described in this article.

As you may already be well aware, the UAE is continuously striving to achieve and maintain the highest ranking on global competitiveness indices, as it continues to be a magnet attracting capital, businesses, investors and talent.

As per the global competitiveness assessments and rankings carried out by the World Economic Forum and other global organisations, one of the key criteria used is the availability of capital for private-sector investment from several diverse and important sources including private equity and venture capital, something that the prosperity of most economies depends on. Hence, the availability of information about the flow of such funds is essential for such assessments of the UAE’s financial markets. For this purpose, the UAE Ministry of Economy, along with the major financial regulators of the UAE, including the SCA, the Abu Dhabi Global Market, and the Dubai Financial Services Authority are collaborating on an initiative to help build a database of such information for the UAE.

Therefore, the SCA hereby requests your active participation in contributing data to a central database that is run by Refinitiv, a private-sector information service that is a globally renowned data provider for a wide array of investment activities and classes including private equity and venture capital.

Contributing data to Refinitiv’s database that will potentially be used in their reports concerning private investment activity is very easy, as their team of private equity analysts will liaise with you on a quarterly basis to ensure your data is entered and maintained in the database in a timely and convenient manner. When the process is initiated, Refinitiv will ask you to provide your historical information including details about the company and its funding, company preferences, investment, fundraising mechanisms and exit information and portfolio/investee company profile. Subsequently, you will simply be asked to provide an update on Investment Activity for the most recent quarter as well as any changes to the company, its funding or its investment portfolio.

Refinitiv currently maintains a record of your firm’s profile within its Private Equity and Venture Capital database and the SCA is looking for your support to ensure that these records are complete and correct.

The survey process takes place on a quarterly basis. You may submit information in the Refinitiv Contributor Tool or in a format that best suits your workflow. Contributors can submit their data on the online reporting platform at contribute.refinitiv.com, where you will have to create an account using the “Request Access” option and then select Private Equity as the asset class.

Once you gain access to the tool (Refinitiv will need to authenticate your firm’s profile first) a short online tutorial video on how to add/edit/submit data on the Home tab at the top of the screen is available. The contributor platform can accommodate attachments and URLs for submitting transaction activity. You can submit your excel document or URLs at the bottom of the Investments tab. Submissions can also be made via email by sending all updates to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You can later review and update all data and information tracked for your firm in real-time, including all previous submissions, on the contributor platform.

For guidance purposes, we have attached a template Private Equity Excel Activity Survey.xlsx of the requested information, with the required information highlighted in yellow. The remaining entry fields are optional.

We hope that once sufficient data from the UAE and other countries in the Middle East become available with the help of your valuable data contributions, in the future, reports can be published on Refinitiv’s Deals Intelligence site at www.refinitiv.com/en/products/deals-intelligence#quarterly-reviews, alongside reports for other regions such as North America and Europe.

Providing your data is completely free and does not require a membership. Your contribution supports both public and private sectors efforts substantially in allowing enhanced exposure to the private equity funding space. Any amount of information that you can provide, no matter how insignificant it may seem, will be of great support to this initiative and towards our efforts in building a comprehensive data pool.

The data and information you contribute to this database can be submitted anonymously and kept confidential. It will only be stored and presented in aggregate form. The data on any specific investment or deal can be processed on a confidential basis in such a way that they are not associated with a specific firm or investor. According to Refinitiv’s confidentiality policies, with regards to investments information, survey respondents may designate a certain company investment as "do not disclose", which embargoes the information from both online and printed publication. Embargoed data will be freely aggregated and used in analysis and summary statistics. Embargoes last for three (3) years. They can be lifted if the investment information is made public through a press release, a website, etc.

The SCA appreciates your active participation in this exercise and your valuable data contributions for this important initiative.

We are happy to answer your questions or provide you with any further clarification in this regard. Kindly contact Othman Ahmed Al Ali, Director of Strategy and Future Department, Securities and Commodities Authority via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by reaching out to him on +971 4 2900 903.

Please be aware that the information in this article has been provided by the SCA. JAFZA makes no representation or warranties towards the content of this article.