The Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) announced today individual partnerships with financial services company Peninsula Real Estate and enterprise software firm Eureka as part of its AED 2 billion (USD 545 million) Innovation Programme. Under the agreement, ADIO will provide financial and non-financial incentives to support each company’s growth in Abu Dhabi.
The partnerships will accelerate the advancement and deployment of Peninsula’s and Eureka’s market leading capabilities and technologies in their respective fields, while developing specialist skillsets that expand Abu Dhabi’s knowledge economy. The addition of investment analysts, asset managers and data scientists expands the pool of talent in the financial services and information and communications technology (ICT) sectors and supports the ambitions of the emirate’s innovation ecosystem.
Markus Thomas, Head of Investments at ADIO, said: “As Abu Dhabi progresses toward a knowledge-based economy, we are prioritising the development of human capital to drive innovation and ideas. Both Peninsula and Eureka are building impressive organisations based on innovative technology, business models and are driven by expert teams. Attracting such talent to the emirate enhances the real estate and data analytics sector capabilities and sends a clear message of what can be expected from Abu Dhabi in terms of best-in-class businesses. ADIO will continue to partner with innovation-driven companies to help them reach the next stage of their growth journeys in Abu Dhabi and beyond.”
Real estate investment company Peninsula utilises quantitative macro and micro research to provide a platform through which international institutional capital benefits from enhanced access to GCC real estate markets. The liquidity solution assists with the repricing of regional real estate risk through accelerated price discovery.
ADIO’s Innovation Programme support enables Peninsula to expand its capabilities from its investment, research and operations headquarters in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM). Peninsula and ADIO will also work together to advance the financial services and real estate sectors in Abu Dhabi through an internship and academic engagement programme focused on enhancing deep real estate and financial services sector expertise.
James Gallon, CEO and Co-founder of Peninsula, said, “At Peninsula, we deploy thought-leading research on the impact of liquidity and governance to address the pricing of risk of real assets. We are working with real estate asset owners in Abu Dhabi and the wider GCC region to optimise and unlock asset value through an innovative liquidity solution. We chose ADGM as the location for our headquarters, due to its status as a dynamic global financial hub with a strong emphasis on innovation. We are delighted to have the strong support of ADIO as Peninsula continues to expand its partnerships across the UAE and beyond.”
Enterprise software company Eureka enables companies to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to large scale external and internal data sets and combine them to derive intelligence at scale. Eureka’s financial intelligence products enable credit and risk scoring leveraging telecom and alternative data as well as open banking and transaction data. Eureka’s market intelligence product Omni provides the largest continuous market research panel in a country. Eureka’s DS2 Feature Store and ML Ops platform power these products and independently provide data scientists the tools to apply machine learning at scale.
Under the partnership with ADIO, Eureka will establish its technology R&D and operational headquarters in Abu Dhabi. Eureka’s senior leadership team, data scientists and engineers will relocate to Abu Dhabi, from which they will actively grow their presence in the UAE and manage their global client base.
Benjamin Soemartopo, CEO of Eureka, said: “As a global company operating across Asia, Middle East, Africa and the US, Abu Dhabi provides a central location and convenient time zone for us to operate 24x7. Abu Dhabi has shown a strong commitment to the development of an ecosystem of deep technology and R&D. Furthermore, the UAE’s quality of life and management of the pandemic has given us confidence that we are establishing our headquarters in a supportive environment for our current team and as we expand.”
ADIO’s Innovation Programme supports new and innovative ideas through globally competitive financial incentives. It targets innovation-led companies and early-stage companies in high-growth areas including financial services, ICT, health services and biopharma, agriculture technology, ecotourism and more.
