DIFC: raising private capital on a Crowdfunding Platform

The regulator and the activity

The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) supervises financial activity in the DIFC under its Rulebook, the centre's common-law framework. Operating a Crowdfunding Platform is a regulated activity authorised as a Category 4 permission, with a base capital requirement of USD 140,000. The permission defines the scope of the operator's activity within the wider conduct regime the DFSA administers.

The Crowdfunding Platform framework sets conduct standards for how issuers are presented, how clients are onboarded and how each offer is disclosed. The operator carries these obligations across the life of every offer, and the framework treats the platform as the regulated intermediary between issuers and the clients it admits.

What it means for issuers and investors

Retail clients are permitted, subject to an investment cap of USD 50,000 per year for each retail client. The offer window is set per offer rather than fixed by rule. A volume-based allocation ladder, which rewards earlier commitments through defined tiers, is permitted under this regime, and the tiers apply on the same terms to every client who reaches them.

Secondary liquidity may be provided through a transfer facility; any continuous trading venue is a separate Multilateral Trading Facility permission that sits outside the platform activity. Data is held in the UAE. The DIFC is a planned phase-2 jurisdiction for SoukRaise, and the platform remains pre-licence, so this page describes the framework a raise would use rather than a permission already in place.

DFSA Rulebook (Conduct of Business, crowdfunding); positions as at July 2026, subject to confirmation with counsel