Zain Group has earned global recognition as its flagship accelerator, Zain Great Idea (ZGI), was named one of the Corporate Rising Stars for 2025 at the Corporate Startup Stars Awards in Paris. The accolade acknowledges Zain’s long-term commitment to open innovation and its structured approach to startup acceleration over more than 15 years.
The award ceremony, hosted at the headquarters of the International Chamber of Commerce and co-organized with Mind the Bridge, celebrated corporations that have successfully embedded startup collaboration into their strategic models. The award was received by Nawaf Al-Gharabally, CEO of Zain Kuwait.
Now in its tenth edition, the Corporate Startup Stars program honors companies globally that excel in open innovation through accelerators, venture builders, VC funds, intrapreneurship tracks, and procurement fast lanes. The Corporate Rising Star category highlights high-potential organizations with exceptional commitment to nurturing emerging innovation ecosystems.
Launched in 2010, ZGI has evolved from a Kuwait-focused accelerator into a Group-wide regional platform that supports founders across Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The platform identifies promising startups, accelerates their growth, and connects them with capital, enterprise pilots, and opportunities for scale through Zain’s operations.
Supported by Zain Ventures, the group’s investment arm, and ZainTECH, its regional digital solutions provider, ZGI offers hands-on mentorship across cloud, cybersecurity, data, AI, IoT, and robotics. Startups also work directly with Zain’s enterprise, technical, and commercial teams to explore proofs of concept and commercial partnerships across the company’s eight markets.
In November 2025, top founders from the ZGI 2025 cohort joined an international program in Silicon Valley, engaging with global operators, investors, and ecosystem leaders—a tradition that ZGI has maintained since its inception.
Over the past 15 years, ZGI has trained more than 7,000 entrepreneurs through over 110 bootcamps, while alumni have raised over $135 million from regional investors in the last five years. The program continues to strengthen MENA’s entrepreneurship landscape through long-term partnerships with regional platforms that have helped launch hundreds of startups.
ZGI remains a key pillar of Zain’s “4WARD—Progress with Purpose” strategy, reinforcing the company’s role as a regional innovation catalyst and demonstrating how open innovation can be embedded into corporate structures to drive meaningful economic and technological impact.
