Queen Rania meets with entrepreneurs at Flat6Labs Jordan
AMMAN — Her Majesty Queen Rania visited the Jordanian offices of Flat6Labs on Wednesday, where she spoke with a number of local entrepreneurs and startup owners about the opportunities and challenges faced by their growing businesses.
Upon her arrival at Flat6Labs’ offices at the King Hussein Business Park, Queen Rania joined General Manager Rasha Manna, Founder Hany Al Sonbaty, and other members of the firm’s management team for a conversation on its operations, services, and plans for the future, according to a statement from Her Majesty’s office.
A regional startup accelerator and seed fund management firm, Flat6Labs works directly with promising entrepreneurs as a corporate partner, helping them expand their companies and target markets across the Middle East and North Africa, Sonbaty explained.
Since it was first established in Cairo in 2011, the firm has expanded to six more locations, and plans to enter additional emerging markets in the future.
According to Manna, the firm’s Amman chapter, launched in 2021, provides early stage funding and support services to promising Jordanian businesses, with a particular focus on technology and innovation. During its first five years, Flat6Labs Jordan aims to invest in more than 90 early-stage startups in technology-driven fields such as education, healthcare, gaming, electronics, renewable energy, manufacturing, agriculture, and finance.
Manna also briefed Her Majesty on Flat6Labs’ training and support programmes, which provide non-financial services to help accelerate startups’ growth. The firm connects participating entrepreneurs with a network of hundreds of business mentors, investors and corporates, facilitating business and learning opportunities to promote their advancement.
During her visit, the Queen met with a number of entrepreneurs and startup owners who have previously benefited from Flat6Labs programmes to hear about their experiences as business owners in the kingdom. She also sat in on a training session attended by the firm’s current cohort of entrepreneurs.
In addition to its Cairo and Amman chapters, Flat6Labs operates in Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Beirut, Tunis and Bahrain. Managing a number of seed funds valued at $85 million, the firm has supported more than 370 startups and 1,000 entrepreneurs across the region to date.
Flat6Labs is supported by more than 25 institutional investors across the Middle East, allowing it to provide startups with funding ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 to support them through the early stages of their businesses.