Amman, August 5, 2023: Amam Ventures and IFC, a member of the World Bank, signed an agreement earlier this week to launch and implement Scale Jordan - a comprehensive 12-month program to accelerate 20 Jordanian startups and enhance their access to finance. Scale Jordan will provide advice and mentorship to Jordanian entrepreneurs through tailored advisory services to build their capabilities and help them attract capital to grow their businesses. Amam Ventures will work with like-minded partners and organizations, as well as with early-stage funds, financing institutions, incubators, and accelerators, to support the selected startups in becoming investment ready while preparing to scale their operations in Jordan and across the region. Scale Jordan will especially focus on targeting underserved demographics – including women, minorities, and forcibly displaced persons. “Investment readiness has been identified as a key gap for Jordanian startups to access finance. We have seen this first-hand through our investment activities in the past two years. Hence, the partnership with IFC for Scale Jordan comes in as a strategic solution to develop readier startups and enable those startups to access financing locally and globally. We are looking to help scale the startups and showcase them as national champions,” said Tamara Abdel-Jaber, Partner at Amam Ventures. “Our commitment to Jordan’s economic prosperity is unwavering. The Netherlands places special emphasis on enhancing access to finance and promoting employment and entrepreneurship opportunities that are accessible to all, including women, youth, and refugees. With our financial support to Scale Jordan, we aim to contribute to the growth potential of the Jordanian economy and provide needed scale-up support to entrepreneurs,” said Mr. Pier de Vries, Chargé d’Affaires a.i. of the Embassy

of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. “Innovation and talent must be nurtured to help entrepreneurs achieve their potential, create jobs, and drive economic growth. In this context, we are proud to partner with regional incubators like Amam Ventures to help offer startups the help they need to scale and introduce groundbreaking solutions to Jordan,” said Khawaja Aftab Ahmed, IFC Regional Director for the Middle East, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Scale Jordan is part of a larger IFC-led initiative, Scale Mashreq, a comprehensive three-year program designed to support entrepreneurs throughout the Levant region. It falls under the global partnership PROSPECTS, which is spearheaded and funded by the Kingdom of the Netherlands. PROSPECTS aims to improve the access of host communities and forcibly displaced people to education, social protection, and jobs. It brings together IFC, the International Labour Organization, the UN Refugee Agency, the UN Children’s Fund, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

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About Amam Ventures

Amam Ventures is a gender-lens impact investment fund that provides risk capital strongly coupled with technical assistance, and supports the sustainability and growth of commercially viable SMEs and tech-enabled startups that are committed to diversity and inclusion.  Amam was established to address a access to finance gender gap for SMEs and startups in Jordan and the MENA region. 

About Prospects 

PROSPECTS is a global partnership that aims to improve the access of host communities and forcibly displaced people to education, social protection, and decent work. Spearheaded by the Government of the Netherlands, it brings together the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the World Bank to help transform the way in which governments and other stakeholders, including the private sector, respond to forced displacement crises.

About IFC

IFC — a member of the World Bank Group — is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. We work in more than 100 countries, using our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities in developing countries. In fiscal year 2022, IFC committed a record $32.8 billion to private companies and financial institutions in developing countries, leveraging the power of the private sector to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity as economies grapple with the impacts of global compounding crises. For more information,