City Builder® by Citi Launches Global Hub and Brings Platform to Kingdom of Jordan
Head of Public-Private Innovation, Studio, Citi Ventures
Product Group Manager, Studio, Citi Ventures
Product Manager, Studio, Citi Ventures
Citi Ventures’ free, data-driven platform that helps investors make socially impactful, place-based investments continues its global expansion with a centralized hub and the launch of its first Middle East instance.
When Citi Ventures’ Studio team launched City Builder® by Citi in 2019, our mandate was sharply defined: build a platform that can help investors and other stakeholders find opportunities to support underserved communities in the U.S. Aligned with the U.S. government’s Opportunity Zones initiative, City Builder was designed to elevate place-based investing incentives and provide resources for investors to make inclusive, equitable, and impactful investments in communities across the country.
Since then, a lot has changed, but our goal has remained the same. Our team has continued to innovate and expand the U.S.-based platform, adding climate data and urban renewal projects earlier this year to support community resilience and give users even more data to consider when making investment decisions. And in 2021, we introduced City Builder in Milan—the first international market on the platform.
Now, we’re excited to announce that City Builder is bringing a new design to market, which allows users to operate from a central hub and branch out to explore all the platform has to offer. We are also continuing our international growth: co-launching with the City Builder hub is City Builder in Jordan, a new version of our platform designed to increase economic growth and development across the first Middle Eastern country in our growing network.
Launching City Builder in Jordan
After months of hard work and thanks to the dedication and support of teams across Citi, we launched City Builder in Jordan in September 2022.
In close partnership with Jordan’s Ministry of Investment (MoIN), the team has built an integrated, data-driven experience designed to help investors learn about the Kingdom’s myriad opportunities to further sustainable economic development, widen access to global markets, and increase competition and employment within its borders. The goal of the platform is to bring greater transparency to key demographics and development projects within a region—to drive investments that support economic vitality across sectors including agriculture, construction, health, industry, services, and tourism.
As the Jordanian Government works to realize its Economic Modernization Vision 2033, which emphasizes the crucial importance of investment for the future economic development of the Kingdom, His Excellency Eng. Kheiry Amr, Minister of Investment for the Kingdom of Jordan notes: "City Builder supports Jordan’s goals of amplifying the appeal of the Kingdom to investors. This tool enhances the visibility of the vibrant Jordanian investment landscape…thereby raising the profile of Jordan’s warm investment climate."
Nour Jarrar, Citi’s Chief Country Officer for Jordan, adds: “The expansion of City Builder into Jordan represents a landmark moment in the Citi Middle East franchise, as well as demonstrating the power of digital technology to drive economic development in the region.”
With a talented workforce, well-respected universities, and strong financial institutions, Jordan can be an ideal place to put capital to work for both foreign and domestic investors. We encourage you to explore the platform and share it with others who may be interested in learning more about the Kingdom!
Setting City Builder Up for Future Global Growth
Since 2020, City Builder has been a platform that has had two markets operating independently of each other. This worked well for the robust U.S. market and the neighborhood-focused Milan market. However, as our team prepared to add Jordan to the platform, it became apparent that a having a central hub would give users a better, more comprehensive experience.
The new hub design allows users to land on a central homepage where they can learn about the platform, the features of each market, then navigate to the region of their choosing and explore place-based data and investment opportunities there.
This design is more than just a nice new feature: it is a launching pad for City Builder’s further international expansion. Our team is preparing to launch in even more markets around the world later this year and into 2023, and as we add them to City Builder, the hub will increasingly become the center of the platform. We are excited about the benefit it will bring to the City Builder users as well as to our internal teams, enabling them to build out new experiences faster and more efficiently than ever before.
As the calendar moves into the tail end of 2022, the City Builder team continues to push forward with new innovative design ideas in line with Citi’s utilization of cutting-edge technology to connect teams and enterprises. It is our goal to highlight the existence of more inclusive and equitable place-based investment opportunities to our users and the communities we serve.
Stay tuned for more!
For more information about City Builder® by Citi, email Neel Patel at neel.patel@citi.com, Ryan Harper at ryan.harper@citi.com, or Cici Li at cici.li@citi.com.
To see City Builder in action, visit www.citi.com/citybuilder.