Doha, Qatar: Qatar Financial Centre Authority (QFCA), signed two major memorandums of understanding (MoU) with international companies - Unicorn Inc. and The Hashgraph Association (THA) during the Qatar Economic Forum, which concluded yesterday.

The leading onshore business center in the Middle East entered into a collaboration with ‘Unicorn Media’ in order to strengthen the country in terms of implementing active innovation events and projects across several realms.

Speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the signing ceremony, the CEO and co-founder, of Unicorn Inc., Silvina Moschini, remarked that the partnership between QFC and Unicorn Inc. aims to attract Qatari startups and talented individuals.

She said: “Our business model has two sides. One is a media company, which produces a show to draw more startups and entrepreneurs to pitch in, especially from this region. The other part is selecting entrepreneurs, by working with entities including Startup Qatar, to understand who are the entrepreneurs that are today a part of the Qatari ecosystem.”

With the emerging innovation across the region, like Dubai and Saudi, Unicorn accelerates diverse sectors such as Fintech, and biotech health technology and also targets several companies that focus on longevity.

The official indicated working alongside Qatar Media City and Qatar Airways to bring sponsors and partners that will help to finance the show and its distributions.

In a statement to the media, the Chief Executive Officer at QFC, Yousuf Mohamed Al-Jaida, commented: “This partnership reflects QFC’s ongoing efforts in supporting Qatari entrepreneurs and empowering local startups and SMEs by providing a conducive business environment and an advanced innovation ecosystem that help them grow and expand.”

Additionally, QFC also inked a strategic deal with THA, to launch a platform enabling Qatari and international portfolio firms in the development of regulatory-compliant decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions and digital assets built on the Hedera Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) network. The MoU was signed by QFC CEO, Yousuf Mohamad Al Jaidah and President of The Hashgraph Association, Kamal Youssefi.

The program, Digital Assets Venture Studio, which is valued at $50m (QR182m), will invest in Hedera-powered Web3 startups and enterprises building bankable DeFi solutions, which will run until 2028 with The Hashgraph Association contributing $10m (QR36.4m).

With the vital signing of this partnership with QFC, the Switzerland-domiciled company anticipates ensuring that the program will be a part of Qatar’s Digital Assets Lab under the framework of QFC Innovation Dome, since its launch in December 2023, in accordance with the national strategy vision in 2030.

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