Al Tamimi & Company (“Al Tamimi”) and Corporate Hub 9 (“CH9”) are delighted to announce a mutual collaboration, whereby Al Tamimi will assist start-up enterprises, fostered by CH9, through the provision of legal guidance, support and assistance, through its Bahrain office.

CH9 is a business accelerator centre established in the Kingdom of Bahrain with the aim of helping innovative enterprises grow and prosper through knowledge, investment support and access to local and regional markets.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Mohamed Al Tawash, Chairman of CH9, commented: “Providing a large support and registration to startups is a must and we are so glad for our partnership with Al Tamimi & Co across the MENA region”

Partner & Head of Al Tamimi’s Bahrain Office, Foutoun Hajjar, added: “We are pleased to embark upon this partnership with CH9 to support the development of start-ups in Bahrain. The entrepreneurial community is growing and developing at a rapid pace across the region. As the largest law firm in the Middle East, paired with extensive commercial and legal expertise, and long-established relationships with key decision makers, regulators and government bodies in the region, Al Tamimi is in a strong position to support entrepreneurs with their start-ups and innovations across the Middle East.”

As part of the mutual collaboration, Al Tamimi and CH9 will now work closely to:

• Create collaborative opportunities for future joint or allied activity and projects which aid the Bahrain start-up community fostered by CH9.
• Share legal knowledge and expertise through workshops, presentations and training, including the roll-out of a structured learning programme.
• Provide legal business mentors, and legal advice to start-ups fostered by CH9, by way of pro-bono or discounted rates, enabling them to grow while receiving quality advice to protect and develop their business.

The collaboration between Al Tamimi and CH9 was announced at Bahrain’s recent three-day workshop, Seedstars MENA 2017. This year, the event allowed attendees to enjoy two days of boot camp training lead by industry experts including Al Tamimi lawyers, who gave inspirational speeches, enlightening panels and impactful mentoring. The three days were concluded with a summit open to delegates.

The flagship event brought together more than 300 startup founders, investors, ecosystem players, leading corporations and successful entrepreneurs from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the US, including the winning startups from the 9 Seedstars competitions across the MENA region. The winners will now go on to represent their respective countries in Switzerland in April to compete for a $1M investment prize.

Ahmad Salah, Rad El Treki and Raj Pahuja represented Al Tamimi as mentors to the competition winners, participating in sessions with ‘WNNA’ (Bahrain) (a driven contextual search app); ‘Favizone’ (Tunisia) (a plug and play SAAS solution enabling retailers to develop their own customised Artificial Intelligence chatbot); and ‘General Senses’ (Kuwait) (virtual reality and augmented related based human interface technologies).

To learn more about the MOU, please contact:

Rad El Treki

Senior Associate, Al Tamimi & Company

r.eltreki@tamimi.com