GrowthX Capital: How Hamad Al-Hajri's Venture Hub Is Building Qatar's Next Generation of Startups

Doha — In little more than a year GrowthX Capital, founded by Snoonu CEO Hamad Al-Hajri, has built an active early-stage portfolio in Qatar, backing homegrown startups, attracting international founders to base regional operations in Doha, and taking strategic positions in regional venture funds. GrowthX lists a fund size of US$150 million and Al-Hajri announced at the firm’s June 2026 launch plans to deploy QAR 500 million (roughly US$137 million) into high-growth startups over five years, a commitment he linked to Qatar National Vision 2030.

“GrowthX Capital exists to help visionary founders like this scale directly from Doha,” Al-Hajri said at the GRO announcement, summing up the firm’s operator-led approach.

Strategy and early bets

GrowthX describes itself as a Doha-headquartered venture investment hub with a dual mandate: write direct cheques into startups from pre-seed through Series A across the GCC and MENA, and invest as a strategic limited partner (LP) in early and growth-stage venture funds. The firm has also signalled a move into secondary-market capital to provide founders and early investors more flexible liquidity routes.

Its portfolio demonstrates a close alignment with Qatar’s incubation pipeline. ShipBee, an AI-powered logistics marketplace founded in 2024 by Tamer Raafat and Amer Azani, validated its product through Qatar Development Bank hackathons and the Digital Incubation Center. GrowthX led ShipBee’s QAR 855,000 (US$235,000) pre-seed round in June 2025 and returned to lead a US$500,000 seed round in March 2026, taking ShipBee’s total external funding to roughly US$735,000 as it expands across the GCC and Egypt.

• GRO Solutions, an AI-powered personal finance platform founded by Mariia Shevchenko with Ukrainian and German co-founders, graduated from Qatar FinTech Hub and raised US$600,000 in a pre-seed round in June 2026 with GrowthX anchoring the deal and committing to HQ the company in Doha.
• TalebHub, a student economy platform led by Mesfer Almarri, and Hired Valley, an AI hiring and career platform headquartered in Qatar, joined the portfolio and were integrated into the Snoonu Startup Factory to access Snoonu’s tech stack, operations and commercial network. Hired Valley and TalebHub figures were announced by Al-Hajri as a combined US$1 million package alongside Snoonu.

Regional reach and fund-level exposure

GrowthX has pursued international and fund-level plays to amplify its impact. In July 2026 it led an institutional round in EdenMountain, a Saudi-founded marketplace for Enterprise Non-Operating Rights (ENORs®), supporting platform development and a partnership with Snoonu’s merchant network. In August 2026 GrowthX participated in the US$45 million Series B of Yuno, a global payment orchestration platform that is establishing Qatar as its GCC hub, in a round that included Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global and Rasmal Ventures.

At the fund level GrowthX has taken strategic LP positions in Rasmal Ventures and in strategies managed by Shorooq Partners, multiplying its regional reach and feeding deal flow and co-investment opportunities back to Doha. Other portfolio companies include Deus Robotics and Open CX.

Outlook

By combining operator experience from Snoonu with capital and fund-level relationships, GrowthX aims to close the financing gap that follows Qatar’s incubator-led discovery phase — the early “first and second cheques” local founders have historically lacked. Across disclosed deals — ShipBee’s seed, GRO Solutions, Hired Valley and TalebHub — roughly US$1.85 million in early-stage financing has been announced with GrowthX backing, excluding undisclosed positions in EdenMountain, Yuno, Deus Robotics, Open CX and its fund commitments. If GrowthX deploys its announced QAR 500 million over five years as planned, it could materially deepen Doha’s startup pipeline at the stage where capital and operator support most influence scale and regional headquarters decisions.