DUBAI, 17th September, 2026 (WAM) — Dubai Future District Fund (DFDF) has announced a commitment to a global growth fund managed by Nordstar Partners (Nordstar), a UK-headquartered investment manager focused on AI, FinTech and consumer technology.
The commitment reflects DFDF’s focus on the stretch between Series A and Series C, where regional companies must convert early traction into operational scale.
Nordstar is led by Managing Partners Eugen Miropolski and Ole Ruch, who came to investing from senior operating roles at Groupon, Airbnb and WeWork, including positions as COO, Head of International and Managing Director. Between them they have managed hyper-growth, international market entry and the difficult corporate transitions that follow, and these are the specific problems their portfolio founders are living through. Investment decisions at Nordstar are therefore grounded in direct scaling experience rather than in financial modelling alone.
“The scale-up gap is one of the most consequential funding gaps in our market, and it is not solved by capital on its own,” said Nader Albastaki, Managing Director of Dubai Future District Fund. “Founders at Series B often need more than money. What they need is someone who has already built the thing they are trying to build. Eugen and Ole have run international expansion at genuine scale, and that experience is what makes their support practical rather than theoretical. Backing a manager of this profile serves our D33 mandate directly, and it gives regional founders access to a class of operating counsel that has been largely absent from this stage of the market.”
“We started Nordstar because we kept meeting founders who had built something genuinely good, and we wanted to share the best of our learnings, both good and bad,” said Ole Ruch, Managing Partner, Nordstar. “DFDF’s commitment deepens our footing in a region that is creating companies ready to scale, and we work closely with founders in the region, supporting them on the decisions that are hard to get right the first time.”
Nordstar has existing investments in Middle East ventures, including Kitopi and Silkhaus. Through this collaboration, Nordstar will work with DFDF to support UAE-based companies as they expand internationally, opening its operator network and market-entry expertise to regional founders navigating growth beyond their home market. DFDF regards this commitment to the ecosystem of mentorship, market access and the transfer of scaling expertise into Dubai as integral to the collaboration rather than incidental to it.
Source: Emirates News Agency