There’s a hidden secret in the Gulf that almost no one tells fund managers about.
Many of my clients already run sophisticated, multi-jurisdictional fund platforms – Luxembourg, the UK, Channel Islands, BVI, Cayman… you name it.
What they don’t have is a credible, boots-on-the-ground presence in the Gulf.
And that’s where the classic dilemma starts:
- If you don’t show up in the region, nobody takes you seriously and you can’t raise capital.
- But setting up a full DIFC fund structure before you have proof of concept is costly, time-consuming, and risky.
The solution (that almost nobody talks about): a DIFC Representative Office.
Instead of launching a new fund in Dubai from day one, we set up a lean DIFC Rep Office that:
- Gives you a serious onshore presence in the Gulf’s leading financial centre
- Allows you to use your existing regulated fund structures abroad (Lux, UK, CI, BVI, Cayman, etc.)
- Scales from shared workspace to a full office with team, visas and local hires
- Lets you test and build your investor base in the region before committing to a full local fund
It’s the perfect bridge:
You keep your existing fund ecosystem – and add a credible, regulated front door in DIFC to access Gulf family offices, institutions and sovereign capital.
We are already setting this up for several managers, but it’s still very much an industry “secret”.
If you’re running a regulated fund structure elsewhere and want real Gulf exposure without immediately launching a new fund, this might be exactly the tool you’ve been missing.
If you’d like to explore what a DIFC Rep Office could look like for your platform, happy to discuss.