Expand North Star 2025: Dubai Opens Doors For Indian Startups Seeking Global Scale

From Nykaa to Mamaearth, and Blue Tokai to Go Colors, an expanding roster of Indian startups is looking to the Middle East. For many, the MENA region is not just another market — it’s both a bridge to global expansion and a gateway to deep-pocketed investors. But cracking into these $4 Tn+ economies is no easy feat. Doors tend to open faster if you know the landscape — or better still, if you already have backers in the region.

Take the case of Zaara Biotech’s Najeeb Bin Haneef. In 2019, he left Kerala for Dubai with little more than an idea: using algae and seaweed to build sustainable FMCG products. A year later, his pitch won the confidence of TCN International, which committed $10 Mn. By 2022, his startup had set up operations in the UAE.

Haneef’s journey is no outlier. FreshCraft Technologies ($12.7 Mn raised), Machbee Innovations ($1.1 Mn), and ShopDoc ($1.36 Mn) are among the Indian startups that can trace a critical part of their growth back to Dubai’s Expand North Star (ENS).

Hosted by Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy (DCDE) and organised by the Dubai World Trade Centre, ENS has grown into one of the world’s most recognised gathering points for founders, investors, and policymakers. This October, the event returns for its 10th edition at Dubai Harbour (12–15 October), spotlighting how innovators can tap into the networks, trust, and capital they need to scale into lasting businesses.

At ENS 2025, more than 1,800 startups will be pitching to over 1,000 investors. As per the ENS 2025 website, over 13,000 of such conversations are already scheduled in advance, and some 70,000 people are expected to stream through the venue over four days, listening to 350 speakers drawn from nearly 100 countries.

Amid those pitches will be hundreds of Indian founders who would be gaining what’s often hardest to find: access. Access to policymakers shaping the region’s digital economy, peers from 100 countries, which could become the bedrock of collaborations that can carry an idea well beyond South Asia.

This year’s speaker line-up includes Sunita Grote (Lead, Ventures, UNICEF Office of Innovation), Sung Sik (Head of EMEA, Samsung Ventures), Ramana Kumar (CEO – Middle East, Paytm), Lily Liu (President, Solana Foundation), and Alona Shevtsova (CEO, Sends).

On the investor side, the event will host representatives from firms such as Lakestar, UCB Ventures, African Infrastructure Investment Managers, JP Morgan, Honda Xcelerator Ventures, SpeedInvest, Truffle Capital, and many more.

ENS 2025: The Ideas, Stages And Shifts To Watch

“As we celebrate Expand North Star’s previous achievements, we remain committed to empowering the next generation of entrepreneurs and strengthening the position of Expand North Star as a strategic gateway for startups to scale from Dubai to the world,” said Saeed Al Gergawi, Vice President of Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy.

Across four days, the programme will feature keynote addresses, fireside chats, and panel discussions on themes ranging from AI and fintech to robotics, decentralised finance, the future of the internet, and the UAE’s startup launchpad. By night, the agenda shifts gears — yacht parties, AI-powered DJ sets, live shows, and informal meetups bring founders and investors together in a more relaxed setting, swapping notes over food, music, and city lights.

“Capital in our region is relationship-led, so trust comes before cheques,” Gergawi observed, noting that ENS was designed to shorten the path between pitch and partnership. “At ENS 2025, founders can validate across multiple markets in days rather than months. The goal is to accelerate trust, and then ensure there’s follow-through.”

Alongside its main programme, ENS will also host a series of focused events, each tailored to highlight a different corner of the global startup ecosystem. Some of them are:

ScaleX: The official growth programme of ENS 2025, ScaleX will spotlight over 50 of the world’s fastest-growing tech companies. It is designed to prepare scaleups remotely and then plug them directly into Middle East investors and partners during the event, speeding up their global expansion.

Consumer Tech Zone: A new addition this year, the zone will showcase startups building AR/VR hardware, smart health devices, lifestyle tech and connected products. Backed by accelerators and government innovation programmes, these founders represent the frontier of consumer technology.

North Star Green Impact: Debuting in 2025, this sustainability-focused space will highlight startups working on clean energy, water tech, circular economy solutions and green mobility. With climate tech funding in MENA rising sharply, the zone aims to connect founders with impact investors and policymakers.

Deeptech MEA Summit: This summit will convene entrepreneurs, researchers and government leaders working in advanced technologies from AI and robotics to quantum computing. The agenda is built around scaling deeptech in the region through collaboration and access to resources.

Digital Assets Forum: A global gathering of experts to examine how financial infrastructure is being reshaped, from central bank digital currencies and tokenised assets to AI-powered risk management. The forum will tackle the defining questions of the next era in finance.

Other Signature Programmes: The 10th edition brings back ENS’s flagship initiatives, including the Supernova Challenge 2.0 with a $200,000 prize pool, the Corporate Arena for enterprise-startup collaborations, and the Tech Transfer Innovation Forum linking research with business.

Apart from that, specialised tracks such as Marketing Mania, along with YouthX Unipreneur and Emaratipreneur platforms, will be there to nurture young talent.

India’s Decade At Expand North Star 2025

Expand North Star has become a cornerstone in the emirate’s push to cement itself as a global hub for technology and innovation. Over the past decade, no community has shown up more consistently or at a larger scale than India’s.

According to ENS, in 2023, 160 Indian startups took to the floor; in 2024, that rose to 225. This October, the tally is expected to cross 300. Across ten editions, nearly 800 Indian exhibitors and ecosystem partners have participated in the event, spread across sectors such as AI, SaaS, healthtech, and edtech.

But what attracts Indian innovators to Dubai is not only scale but the proximity and practicality offered by the Middle East’s startup hub. Dubai is a three-to-four-hour hop from most Tier I cities in India and offers specialist free zones, structured-style matchmaking, and regulators, corporates and investors who are interested in working with Indian talent.

Credit to this fact, over the years, ENS’s stage has been able to attract many Indian unicorn founders, including Moglix, Paytm and Urban Company, while Startup India, Kerala Startup Mission, Startup Tamil Nadu, MEDEPC, IIT Madras, and NASSCOM have anchored the aisles of the summit.

Shihab Makaniyi, CEO of Indian Healthcare platform ShopDoc, which reached the SuperNova Challenge Finals in 2021, says, “Dubai was the natural first choice as we scaled beyond India. It is close to home, globally connected and set up for speed. Reaching the finals brought credibility and contacts, which led to pioneering projects and a major global partnership.”

The words reiterate the fact that the UAE-India initiativesare providing startups with a guided path into the Gulf, turning Dubai from a long-haul detour into a first global step. Or, as Gergawi puts it, “This platform will get you in front of the rooms that matter. For India’s founders, that means Dubai is no longer just a stop on the global circuit; it’s where ambitions turn into partnerships, capital, and scale.”

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