Zeytoon Ventures

Deep roots.Global branches.

Zeytoon Ventures backs SWANA founders, starting with Palestinian innovators building tech-enabled companies.

  • New YorkHQ
  • MinneapolisUS
  • LondonUK
  • RamallahPalestine
  • DubaiUAE

Thesis

The olive tree, zeytoon in Arabic and Farsi, lives for centuries and grows stronger through adversity. We see the same in the founders we back.

Zeytoon Ventures partners with founders from underrepresented SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa) communities and their diaspora. Our first fund backs Palestinian founders globally.

Talent is not scarce. Institutional capital, market access, and the infrastructure that lets companies scale are. Founders who build through complexity tend to develop unusual resourcefulness, technical depth, and global ambition. Our job is to invest early, open doors to customers and partners in the US, and help build an ecosystem that lasts.

Zeytoon Fund I

Stage
Pre-seed and seed
Founders
Palestinian, globally
Sector
Agnostic, tech-enabled
Headquarters
New York

Zeytoon Fund I is run in partnership with Decile Group, which supports our fund infrastructure, operations, and compliance.

Express interest ↗

Zeytoon Scale

Our scale-up arm · Rolling out in phases

Capital to start. Customers to scale.

Year one taught us that the hardest part for our founders isn’t capital. It’s customers. Zeytoon Scale is a network for pilots, not mentorship: companies set aside budget for startup pilots, we match them with vetted startups, and they pay only on delivery. We are rolling it out in phases and now accepting both startups and businesses, including founders beyond our portfolio.

01

You pledge

A dedicated portion of a budget you already control, set aside for startup pilots.

02

We match

Vetted startups that solve a problem you actually have, found faster than you could alone.

03

You pilot

Pay only on delivery. If it works, it becomes a contract.

If you hold a P&L, sign up.

Your pilot could be a founder’s first real customer, and your next competitive edge. One department, one pilot, paid only on delivery.

Pledge a pilot ↗
For businesses
Pledge a pilot ↗

Zeytoon Scale is supported outside Zeytoon Ventures Fund I. Announced at the Palestinian Investment Forum, Palestine Business Council, Dubai, October 25, 2026.

Portfolio

Hakini started as Palestine’s first online mental health platform and has grown into a care platform for professionals and organizations worldwide. Hakini.io lets professionals, clinics, and organizations run their own branded care platform.

Founders Sondos Mleitat and Majd Manadre

hakini.net ↗hakini.io (SaaS) ↗Why we invested ↗

AI-native FDA regulatory services. Panacea pairs former FDA reviewers with an AI platform to take biotech and medical device companies through FDA filings faster and at lower cost, with fixed, milestone-based pricing.

Founders Haris Javed-Akhtar and Yaman Ziadeh

Backed by Y Combinator, Spring 2026

withpanacea.com ↗Y Combinator ↗
Next company

Our first investments from Fund I. We are just getting started.

Building something? Submit your company ↓

Team

Venture partners

Perspectives

In print

Build Anyway: A Letter to Palestinian Youth

By Sharareh Noorbaloochi This Week in Palestine, August 2026 ↗

From Aid to Agency

By Sharareh Noorbaloochi This Week in Palestine, February 2026 ↗

Online

The Frenemy Economy: When Competition Buys In

By Sharareh Noorbaloochi LinkedIn ↗

Everyone on Wall Street Has the Same AI Now. So Where Does the Edge Go?

By Sharareh Noorbaloochi LinkedIn ↗

Back from TechWadi: The Bet We Make Every Day

By Nermine Chatila LinkedIn ↗

There’s a $5 Trillion Financial System You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

By Sharareh Noorbaloochi LinkedIn ↗

How we help

We are building a venture scale-up model: fewer companies, backed deeply, from first check to global market.

Building now

The US market entry playbook

A playbook that helps a startup from Palestine enter the US market using AI. Sales outreach, marketing, and customer acquisition, run with AI agents and people in the loop, so market access is repeatable and not a one-time favor.

Today

Operators at every stage

From first screen to global scale, one of us has done it at scale. $100M+ of enterprise AI deployed across Fortune 500 companies, and hands-on help with go-to-market, reporting, and the next raise.

Today

An AI-native firm

We invest where AI is the product, and we run on it too. Our fund operates on an AI-powered platform with institutional-grade back office through Decile Group, so our time goes to founders.

Events

Ecosystem events calendar → Where we’ve spoken ↓

Looking for more? Our ecosystem events calendar gathers conferences, pitch days, webinars and application deadlines for SWANA and Palestinian founders, in person and online.

Where we’ve spoken

Partners

MENACatalyst

Our ecosystem partner. Together we run the Founder Corner and Legal Corner series, the Founder Alignment Lab, workshops, and mixers for founders.

menacatalyst.org ↗

Aligned Foundry

Together with MENACatalyst we ran the Founder Alignment Lab, a seven-week program for founders. Cohort 1 wrapped in August 2026. We also co-hosted the Beyond the Deck fireside.

alignedfoundry.com ↗

Want to partner with us on a program, an event, or a co-investment? Write to info@zeytoon.vc.

Get in touch

For founders

Building something?

We back Palestinian founders globally at pre-seed and seed. Share your deck and a few lines on what you are building.

Submit your company ↗

For investors

Interested in Fund I?

Learn more about Zeytoon Fund I, or make a non-binding soft commitment.

Express interest ↗

For ecosystem partners

Let’s build together.

Pledge a startup pilot through Zeytoon Scale, or partner with us on a program, an event, or a co-investment.

Pledge a pilot ↗Write to us ↗

Anything else

info@zeytoon.vc LinkedIn ↗