wamda.com - 

Last week, representatives of USAID, the Berytech Foundation (a Lebanese incubator and VC fund), and the United States government announced the launch of a $15 million five-year program to support entrepreneurship in Lebanon as part of the MENA Investment Initiative (MENA-II). Accelerators, investors (both angel investors and venture capital firms), and early stage businesses are eligible for support from the new scheme.

Insure & Match Capital (IM Capital), a subsidiary of Berytech, has been launched to manage the $15 million, to be doled out over the first five years of the 20-year program. The money will be distributed along three channels, explained IM Capital General Manager Nicolas Rouhana, at Thursday’s Beirut press conference: matching capital, equity guarantee, and technical assistance.