Growing support for Lebanon’s entrepreneurs

Bit by bit, the Lebanese entrepreneurial puzzle is coming into place. A startup in Lebanon now can have access to incubators, accelerators and associations supporting entrepreneurship as well as financial backers. “The entrepreneur does not feel alone anymore; he would get enough support now to succeed; a lot of things are happening,” says Sami Beydoun, managing partner of Lebanon-based incubator Berytech’s fund. As the bits of the puzzle come together, the financial investors — keen on supporting entrepreneurship but also of course driven by profit — become more interested in the space. Startups can also have access to subsidized loans offered by Kafalat, the government-sponsored institution supporting small and medium enterprises, which guarantees up to 90 percent of a startup loan taken by a commercial bank. Startups are also increasingly getting access to equity offered by various venture capitalists. Initial backers The first venture capital (VC) fund to set up