FWDstart

In this episode, we sit down with Deepali Nangia and Rana Abdel Latif, the partners leading Speedinvest's first dedicated Middle East and Africa fund, a flagship vehicle for the Vienna-based firm that's been quietly investing across emerging markets since 2013.Earlier this week, Speedinvest announced the fund with anchor commitments from Mubadala (through its MENA Venture Capital Fund), the Qatar Investment Authority (via its newly expanded $3B Fund of Funds programme) and EIB Global, which took the anchor on the Africa-dedicated vehicle with a €40M commitment signed in March. The fund will invest across fintech, embedded finance, health, climate, AI, consumer and digital infrastructure, targeting the Series A and B capital gap that Deepali and Rana have identified across MENAPT and Sub-Saharan Africa.The headlines make it sound like an overnight success, but as Deepali and Rana are quick to admit the reality is that this fundraise has been closer to a three-year marathon. Rana has been investing in the region since 2006, most recently running FinTech investments at Nclude in Cairo. Deepali joined Speedinvest to lead gender investing at the firm and has since become the driving force behind its broader emerging markets thesis, including its Micro GP programme backing female and diverse fund managers.Deepali and Rana are honest about the ups and downs, thoughtful on where capital really needs to flow in Africa and MENA right now, and refreshingly unsparing about the tech bro renaissance that's quietly reversing a lot of DEI progress in European and American VC.We cover:The real fundraising timeline behind the headlines, and why raising from sovereigns and DFIs looks a lot more like an enterprise sales cycle than anything else.Why Speedinvest shifted from opportunistic deals across emerging markets to a dedicated regional strategy with boots on the ground.The inside story of landing QIA, Mubadala and EIB, and how the sovereign narrative has shifted from "invest in our country" to "what can you bring us from outside."Why Series A and B is the real capital gap in Africa, and how they're thinking about complementing equity with debt, callable equity (the NICE facility with STV is the worked example) and potentially securitisation down the line.Where the real FinTech opportunities sit, the long tail of underserved SMEs and consumers, the rise of AI-native fintechs rebuilding the plumbing, and why embedded finance in logistics, agriculture and mobility is under-appreciated.How AI is changing the economics of running a VC firm, and what a flatter, leaner fund looks like as LPs start squeezing management fees.How Rana learned to underwrite currency risk in Egypt across multiple step devaluations, and why you can still make excellent returns if you price the 8 to 10% annual devaluation into your model.The tech bro renaissance, why it's quietly reversing progress right now, and what allyship from the top actually looks like in practice.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro00:50 - Behind the headlines of the fundraise04:15 - Why shift from opportunistic to a dedicated regional strategy11:20 - Inside the QIA and Mubadala deals19:00 - Where the real capital gap sits at Series A and B22:00 - Innovating the capital stack with STV's NICE facility24:00 - FinTech, SMEs, and the rise of the AI-native incumbent27:30 - Why Africa's long tail is the real opportunity30:00 - Picks and shovels vs AI-native bets34:00 - How AI is reshaping VC firm economics36:30 - Pricing currency risk and lessons from Egypt43:00 - The tech bro renaissance and women in VC-----------------------------------------------Transcript: https://share.transistor.fm/s/00307acd/transcript.txt-----------------------------------------------Follow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlaneFollow Rana Abdel Latif on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/rana-abdel-latif/Follow Deepali Nangia on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/nangianomics/Check out Speedinvest:https://www.speedinvest.com/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

In this episode, we sit down with Mahdi Yahya, the founder of Ori, which has just been acquired by Brookfield Asset Management and merged into Radiant, a vertically integrated AI infrastructure company combining power, capital, compute, and software into a single proposition.Mahdi fled Lebanon during the 2006 war at 19, took a taxi to Damascus, flew to London with no degree, and has spent the last two decades on one of the most unconventional founder journeys I've come across: telecoms, drama school at the Drama Centre London, an experimental art-and-technology gallery that nearly bankrupted him, a partnership with Ericsson that led to edge computing, and eventually eight years building what he calls the genetic code for AI infrastructure. We cover:Why Mahdi took a taxi from Beirut to Damascus during the 2006 war at 19 and what he was chasing when he arrived in London with no degree and no plan.How an experimental art gallery called Room One became a "financial disaster" but directly led to the founding of Ori through a partnership with Ericsson on 5G use cases.Why Ori spent six years building speculative infrastructure technology before the market existed for it, and what it was like knocking on a thousand doors to find the one investor who said yes.How ChatGPT turned a use case they were exploring into the use case that justified everything they'd built since 2018.Why the Brookfield acquisition happened and what Radiant unlocks in terms of capital, power, and global scale that Ori couldn't access on its own.Why Mahdi believes intelligence is becoming a sovereign asset on par with electricity grids and water systems, and why most countries don't need to build their own foundation model to achieve sovereignty.Why founders who try to build "the company" too early, hiring heads of HR and finance before product-market fit, are actually making it harder to attract the people they need.Why if somebody is a maybe, you fire them, and why experience and logos on a CV are not reliable indicators of exceptional work.How he closed a $40 million deal in a day and spent six months closing half a million, and why there's no such thing as a set sales cycle in AI infrastructure.Why the cost of over-investing in AI infrastructure is going to be cheaper than the cost of under-investing.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction-----------------------------------------------Transcript: -----------------------------------------------Follow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlaneFollow Mahdi Yahya on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahdi-y/Check out Radiant:https://radiant.co/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

In this episode, we sit down with Alex Epure, co-founder and CEO of Qureos, an AI-powered hiring platform that's just raised a $5M seed round led by Prosus. Alex spent nine years at Cisco, moved to Dubai, and then went from managing global enterprise accounts to launching Saudi Arabia for Swvl during COVID. What started as a passion project helping university graduates land their first job has since evolved into a full-stack hiring infrastructure layer integrated with over 2,400 sourcing channels globally.We cover:Why hiring has never been easier and is still fundamentally broken, and why more tools and more platforms haven't solved the problem.The 1AM Sheraton lobby conversation that convinced his co-founder Usama to join, and what it's like building a company through a market that changed three times in one year.Why their AI chatbot experiment completely flopped, and what they built instead.How Qureos built a nationality and gender prediction engine to solve a hiring compliance problem that's unique to this region.Why 9% of AI interviews still end with the candidate wanting to talk to a human, and what that tells you about the future of recruitment.Why the real job displacement isn't AI itself, it's the person who can do your job and three others at the same time.How raising a seed round led by Prosus involved a live tech pilot with operating companies, and why failing it would have killed the deal entirely.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction02:00 - How the $5M Prosus Round Came Together05:00 - What Qureos Does 08:00 - Nine Years at Cisco & the Move to Dubai13:00 - Joining Swvl & Thriving in Chaos16:00 - The 1AM Sheraton Lobby That Changed Everything22:00 - Going Full-Time in the Worst Market Imaginable27:00 - First AI Experiments & Why the Pivot Was Perfectly Timed30:00 - Why Their AI Chatbot Completely Flopped37:00 - The Business Model: Platform vs Managed Services40:00 - The AI Adoption Gap: MENA vs the US43:00 - Job Displacement & Why Your Replacement Won't Be a Robot-----------------------------------------------Transcript: https://share.transistor.fm/s/56d08ca6/transcript.txt -----------------------------------------------Follow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Alex Epure on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderepure/Check out Qureos: https://www.qureos.com/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

In this episode, we sit down with Glenn Harwood, co-founder of AlgoDriven, who has just completed an all-cash exit to Emergence Software, a San Francisco-based hold-forever software company. Glenn started selling cars at Mercedes-Benz in Australia at 20, became a top-15 salesperson nationally, moved to Al Ain and then Dubai, and eventually turned a frustration with how dealerships valued used cars into a SaaS platform now used by over 1,000 dealerships across ten countries, appraising $25 billion worth of cars every year.This is a rare thing in the MENA startup ecosystem: a genuine, completed exit story, all cash, with early investors made whole and the founders staying on to keep building. Glenn is refreshingly open about the mechanics of the deal, the sleepless nights, and what it actually takes to close an acquisition on December 30th.We cover:How Glenn went from used car salesman to running the number one Mercedes used car department in Australia, and how that domain expertise became the foundation for everything that followed.Why five valuers in a dealership would give five different answers for the same car, and why every industry still running on gut instinct is a startup opportunity.Why every competitor digitised the clipboard and ended up with something more painful than pen and paper, and what AlgoDriven did differently.How they expanded to ten countries on a $2M Series A while remaining profitable, and what the lean international expansion playbook actually looked like.Why the acquisition beat raising a Series B, and how Emergence offered something a funding round couldn't.What it's actually like to close a deal on December 30th, chasing signatures across three continents over Christmas on no sleep.Glenn's honest framing of the VC game: you either IPO, get acquired, or go out of business, and why he's really happy with where they landed.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps:00:00 – Introduction05:00 – "You Either IPO, Get Acquired, or Go Out of Business"06:30 – What is Algo Driven?08:00 – From Computer Stores to Mercedes Sales10:00 – The Spark: Why Car Dealers Need Better Data14:00 – The Real Cost of Getting Valuations Wrong16:00 – Building a Mobile-First Product with Consumer Feel20:00 – First Customers and Taking VC Money24:00 – International Expansion on a $2M Series A28:00 – The Path to Emergent's Acquisition34:00 – Deal Mechanics, AI, and What's Next-----------------------------------------------Thank you to the partners who make this possible:• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save.👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTARTPromo code: FWDSTARTSarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.-----------------------------------------------Transcript: -----------------------------------------------Follow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlaneFollow Glenn Harwood on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/glennharwood/ Check out AlgoDriven: https://www.algodriven.com/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

In this episode, we sit down with Hassan Fayed, founder of Aydi, the company behind Orth, an AI agronomist now live in almost 200 countries just a few months after launch. Hasan grew up working his family's farm in Egypt, moved to Dubai, and then packed his bags during COVID to come back and tackle one of agriculture's most stubborn problems: the billion-strong workforce that's been almost entirely left out of the software revolution. What started as a workforce management platform has since pivoted into something far more ambitious.We cover:Why software has broadly failed farmers, and why it has nothing to do with farmers being anti-technology.How 95% of the world's farms have never been visited by an agronomist, and why the advice most farmers do receive is biased by the people selling them inputs.How Orth went from zero to 80,000 users and almost $50 million in economic value delivered, with zero humans in the loop at any stage.Why Aydi deliberately hasn't figured out monetisation yet, and why Hasan thinks that's exactly the right call.How the team compressed time to value from 27 minutes down to 3, and why they're now considering slowing it back down.Why Hasan believes that if your job can be done remotely, there's a very high chance AI will be doing it soon.His surprisingly strong take on AI personality, why brand and tone will become a significant contributor to enterprise value, and why he thinks we'll develop relationships with AI agents whether we like it or not.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps: 00:00 - Cold Open03:45 - Why Agritech Has Struggled07:30 - Hassan's Farming Background & Origin Story11:30 - The COVID Lightbulb Moment16:00 - Getting Started: Boots on the Ground19:30 - Russia-Ukraine Impact & Pivot to SaaS22:30 - AI Enters the Picture26:30 - The Global Agronomist Shortage30:30 - Launching Earth in 200 Countries33:00 - How Earth's AI Model Works41:00 - Go-to-Market & Overcoming Farmer Skepticism52:00 - Funding & Building the Cap Table1:04:30 - Time to Value, Leadership & the Future-----------------------------------------------Thank you to the partners who make this possible:• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save.👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTARTPromo code: FWDSTARTSarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.-----------------------------------------------Transcript: https://share.transistor.fm/s/1e5b3625/transcript.txt-----------------------------------------------Follow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Hassan Fayed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hassan-f-205745148/Check out ORTH:https://askorth.com/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

In this episode, we sit down with Fouad Jeryes, co-founder and Chief Business Officer at Maqsam, MENA's AI-powered cloud communications platform. Fouad has been building in the region for over a decade, from co-founding CashBasha (one of Jordan's most trafficked e-commerce sites before its acquisition) to helping launch Oasis 500, Jordan's first tech accelerator, to running Amman Tech Tuesdays for ten years, bringing together over 40,000 attendees across the Jordanian startup ecosystem.We cover:– Why Maqsam's competitors are their best salespeople, and how customers keep migrating after poor experiences elsewhere. – Why most Arabic language accuracy benchmarks are nonsense, and why resolution rates are the only metric that actually matters. – Fouad's co-founder relationship with Sinan Taifour, why it's lasted longer than most marriages, and why being different is the whole point. – Why Maqsam has stayed deliberately quiet on fundraising while building a profitable, capital-efficient business. – What it actually means to build a MENA company as a Jordanian founder based in Riyadh, and why the question "are you a Saudi company" misses the point entirely.– Fouad's take on AGI, why he thinks it's much further away than the headlines suggest, and why voice will be the last interface we ever use.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction 03:00 - The Genesis of CashBasha and Building for the Region 06:00 - Why MENA's Fragmentation is Actually the Opportunity 10:00 - A Co-Founder Relationship That's Outlasted Most Marriages 14:00 - Why Maqsam Never Pivoted to AI 15:00 - AI Will Replace Jobs and We Should Be Comfortable With That 19:00 - OpenClaw, Prompt Injection, and the Dark Time Ahead 23:00 - Voice is the Last Interface We'll Ever Use 28:00 - Why Arabic Accuracy Benchmarks are Complete BS 37:00 - Why Maqsam Stayed Deliberately Quiet on Fundraising 39:00 - Our Competitors are Our Best Salespeople 47:00 - Moving to Riyadh and Playing Where Ronaldo Plays 49:00 - "Are You Guys a Saudi Company?" and the MENA Identity Crisis-----------------------------------------------Thank you to the partners who make this possible:• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save.👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTARTPromo code: FWDSTARTSarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.-----------------------------------------------Transcript: https://share.transistor.fm/s/db87419a/transcript.txt-----------------------------------------------Follow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Fouad Jeryes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fouadjeryes/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

Today's guest is Talal Hasan, a lawyer turned venture capitalist turned climate tech founder who has spent the better part of a decade chasing a rather ambitious goal: turning carbon dioxide into rock. His journey started in the Omani investment world, helping set up the venture capital arm for the Sultanate's sovereign wealth fund, but a 2018 discovery about a massive dead zone in the Arabian Sea sent him down a rabbit hole that would eventually lead to 44.01.Named after the molecular mass of CO2, 44.01 is an Oman-based carbon mineralisation company that accelerates a natural process where ultramafic rock absorbs carbon dioxide and converts it into solid carbonate minerals, and it turns out the Arabian Peninsula has some of the largest surface-level deposits of exactly this rock anywhere in the world. What normally takes decades in nature, Talal and his team are doing in months.The company most recently raised a $42M Series A from a cap table that reads like a climate tech fantasy draft: Equinor Ventures, Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Sumitomo, Air Liquide, and a personal nod from Sam Altman's Apollo Projects for good measure. They're now scaling from pilot projects with ADNOC and Masdar to commercial operations, with plans to export the technology they've developed in the Gulf to formations in Norway, Canada, and beyond.We get into the Peter Kelemen article that sparked the idea, what it takes to convince the world that drilling into rock is actually the answer to climate change, and why transportation logistics might be the real constraint on scaling carbon removal globally.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction 03:00 - The Arabian Sea Dead Zone Discovery 05:00 - From Venture Capitalist to Climate Founder 08:00 - The Peter Keleman Moment 13:00 - Why Oman's Geology is Perfect 19:00 - Accelerating Nature: Decades to Months 24:00 - Addressing the Greenwashing Question 30:00 - Building Proprietary Mineralization Technology 36:00 - The ADNOC Partnership Strategy 41:00 - Exporting Hard Tech from MENA 45:00 - The Long-Term Investment Thesis 47:00 - Taking 44.01 Global-----------------------------------------------Thank you to the partners who make this possible:• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save.👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTARTPromo code: FWDSTARTSarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.-----------------------------------------------Transcript: https://share.transistor.fm/s/416fda01/transcript.txt-----------------------------------------------Follow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Talal Hasan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talal-hasan/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

Today's guest is Djamel Mohand, a Rocket Internet alumnus who landed in Saudi Arabia over a decade ago, back when relocating to the Kingdom for tech was rather less fashionable than it is today. What was supposed to be a six-month stint turned into ten years of building businesses across the region, most notably as COO at Foodics, where he helped scale the restaurant management platform to over 30,000 restaurants across 25 countries.Earlier this year he stepped away to start something new: Governata, a Saudi-based data governance platform that just raised a $4 million seed round from investors including Joa Capital, Sanabil Accelerator by 500 Global, and Plug and Play. Data governance is not exactly the sexiest pitch in the world, and Djamel will be the first to admit it. But his thesis is essentially this: everyone is talking about AI adoption, but very few organisations have their data house in order to actually make it work. Governata is positioning itself as that foundational layer, the Arabic-first, Saudi-built platform designed to get enterprises AI-ready rather than just AI-curious. We get into the Rocket Internet origin story, what he learned scaling Foodics, and why the gap between having a data policy and actually implementing one is where the real opportunity lies.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps:00:00 - Introduction03:00 - From France to Saudi: Djamel's Origin Story05:30 - Rocket Internet Baptism of Fire08:00 - The Culture of Extreme Fairness10:30 - The First Ride Hailing Wars15:00 - Pricing Agility as a Competitive Weapon17:30 - Kitopi: 400 Employees in Nine Months21:00 - How Saudi's Regulatory Approach Actually Works25:00 - Discovering the Data Governance Problem32:00 - Leaving Foodics to Start Governata43:30 - The Enterprise Sales Playbook53:00 - Arabic-First and Global Ambitions-----------------------------------------------Thank you to the partners who make this possible:• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save.👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTARTPromo code: FWDSTARTSarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.-----------------------------------------------Transcript: https://share.transistor.fm/s/95eb50ee/transcript.txt-----------------------------------------------Follow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Djamel Mohand on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/djam/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

Alina Truhina is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Utopia Capital Management, a platform spanning VC funds and a venture studio investing across emerging markets. The firm operates Atypical Ventures, a Middle East-plus fund covering Turkey and Pakistan, Radical Fund focused on climate in Southeast Asia, and the recently launched UTOPIA Studio – an AI-native company builder that both creates new ventures and re-engineers portfolio companies for scale. Based in Doha, the firm recently partnered with the Qatar Investment Authority as one of the first international VCs to receive backing from its $1B Fund of Funds program.Born in Europe during the Soviet era, Alina's family moved to Australia as political refugees – an experience that shaped her conviction that talent in emerging markets deserves the same access to capital and networks available in the West. This led her to build investment vehicles across Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, evolving from impact grants to blended finance and now to a fully integrated venture studio model designed to take founders from idea to Series A in under 24 months.She joins the podcast to discuss why copying and pasting Western VC models to the Global South is a recipe for failure, the "Problem-Oriented Deep Dives" (PODs) framework she uses to identify category-defining opportunities, why climate adaptation is the overlooked half of the climate crisis, and her contrarian view that the standard "2 and 20" VC fee structure is fundamentally broken for emerging markets.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps:00:00:00 – Introduction00:05:00 – The Utopia Platform: Funds, Studio & Structure00:07:30 – Why Emerging Markets?00:09:45 – Personal Journey: From Refugee to VC00:13:00 – Climate Investing: Mitigation vs. Adaptation00:20:00 – Building Category-Defining Companies with AI00:23:00 – PODs: Problem-Oriented Deep Dives00:25:30 – The Venture Studio Model00:29:00 – What Makes a Great Founder?00:31:30 – Why Doha as HQ & The QIA Partnership00:43:00 – What Makes a Good Investor?00:50:30 – Biggest Misconception About Emerging Markets-----------------------------------------------Thank you to the partners who make this possible:• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save.👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTARTPromo code: FWDSTARTSarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.-----------------------------------------------Transcript: https://share.transistor.fm/s/25f4e507/transcript.txt-----------------------------------------------Follow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Alina Truhina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alinatruhina/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

Rami Tabbara is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Stake, a digital real estate investment platform that democratizes access to property markets in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Allowing users to invest fractionally from as little as 500 dirhams, Stake has grown into a fintech powerhouse with over 2 million downloads, users in 170 countries, and nearly 1.4 billion dirhams transacted on the platform. The company is backed by regional heavyweights including Mubadala, Wa'ed Ventures, and Property Finder.Before founding Stake, Rami spent over 16 years in the trenches of Dubai’s real estate sector, witnessing how high capital requirements locked out most investors – that he identified the need for a transparent, digital, and affordable entry point. He launched the business during the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns with childhood best friend Manar Mahmassani and later Ricardo Brizido, navigating early regulatory hurdles to build a platform that now pays out over 60 million dirhams in rental income annually.Rami joins the podcast to discuss why he considers Dubai to be a "co-founder" rather than just a city, the brutal lesson of losing his first four hires by faking a "cool startup" culture, why work-life balance is a myth if you want massive outcomes, and the company's aggressive roadmap into 2026 – including the launch of "Stake One" for full home ownership and his pragmatic approach to real estate tokenization-----------------------------------------------Timestamps:00:00 — The "Binance for Real Estate" vision03:32 — What is Stake? Investing with 500 Dirhams05:59 — Rami’s background: 16 years in Dubai real estate10:02 — Launching during COVID and finding the right co-founders11:43 — The first (and terrible) MVP14:58 — Why there isn’t a "Robinhood of Real Estate" yet18:31 — Will technology replace real estate brokers?20:58 — The algorithm: Rejecting 90% of property deals24:00 — Stake One: Buying full homes digitally27:44 — Scaling globally: US Logistics funds and Saudi expansion31:54 — Startup Culture: Why work-life balance is a "myth"34:31 — Managing the Co-CEO dynamic without ego37:48 — The Property Finder partnership explained41:27 — Tokenization and the future of the blockchain45:11 — 2026 Outlook: Saudi Arabia’s freehold explosion-----------------------------------------------Thank you to the partners who make this possible:• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save.👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTARTPromo code: FWDSTARTSarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.• Hubpay – A fully digital, ADGM-regulated fintech platform that gives UAEbusinesses instant access to multi-currency accounts with named IBAN in 30+ currencies, payment links, payroll and more. No hidden fees, no minimum balance, and no waiting.👉 Open your Hubpay business account today and get 30-day free trial athttps://wearehubpay.com/pricing and scale your UAE business with confidence.-----------------------------------------------Transcript: https://share.transistor.fm/s/1b08abfe/transcript.txt-----------------------------------------------Follow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Rami Tabbara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rami-tabbara/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

Nafez Dakkak is the Founding Partner of Anara Capital, a $50 million impact fund investing in early-stage startups across learning, climate, and wellbeing in the MENA region. Designed to be intentional and scalable, the fund backs founders solving critical infrastructure challenges across the Levant, GCC and North Africa.Before launching Anara, Nafez was the Founding CEO of the Queen Rania Foundation’s Edraak, the Arab world's largest massive open online course (MOOC) platform, which today reaches over 10 million learners. His transition from operator to investor also includes establishing BLDR, a venture studio focused on the the potential of the learn to earn cycle across MENA.He joins the podcast to discuss why AI tutors will fail the 80% of students who lack motivation , the "Game Boy Principle" of innovating through constraints rather than shiny new tech , why Arabic literacy is fundamentally broken by diglossia , and the critical difference between a founder who is passionate versus one who is truly obsessed.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps:00:03:00 — Is MENA EdTech Still a Sleeping Giant?00:06:42 — Why EdTech Doesn't Scale Like SaaS (The Civil Engineering Analogy)00:10:18 — From Neurosurgeon Dreams to Education Strategy00:13:14 — Growing Up Palestinian: Education is All You Have00:14:38 — The Story Behind Edraak & The "MIT of the Arab World"00:19:49 — Lessons on Content Localisation & Completion Rates00:22:28 — The Game Boy Principle: Innovation Through Withered Tech00:24:10 — Why AI Tutors Will Fail (The Motivation Problem)00:27:59 — "Vibe Learning" & The Manchester United Transfer Fallacy00:30:17 — The Conflict Between Retention Metrics & Real Learning00:33:20 — The Arabic Language Crisis: Understanding Diglossia00:37:30 — Lessons from the Builder Venture Studio00:40:10 — Anara Capital: Differentiating Impact Investing from Philanthropy00:44:35 — The Exit Landscape for MENA EdTech00:48:13 — Nafez’s "Favorite Problems": Climate, Mental Fitness & Motivation00:50:25 — The Dangers of Cognitive Offloading with AI00:53:26 — An Alternative Career as an Arabic Teacher00:54:05 — Rapid Fire: Gamification is "Chocolate Covered Broccoli"-----------------------------------------------Thank you to the partners who make this possible:• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save.👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTARTPromo code: FWDSTARTSarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.-----------------------------------------------Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6GxkYxN2hNSvQsIOjjqyse?si=4f2f8be6b7294c8eSubscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fwdstart/id1859499563Subscribe on Anghami: https://open.anghami.com/mjWOJeeJ2YbFollow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Nafez Dakkak on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ndakkak/Subscribe to Nafez's Substack:https://nafez.substack.com/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

Nour Al Hassan is the Founder and CEO of Tarjama& and Arabic AI, a UAE-based AI company building Arabic-first language models, enterprise agents, and document intelligence systems for governments and large organisations.Before Arabic AI, Nour spent more than 16 years building Tarjama& from a bootstrapped translation business into a profitable, technology-led platform serving global enterprises. That long runway of proprietary Arabic data became the foundation for the creation of Arabic AI, enabling a leap into small language models, agentic workflows, and on-prem deployments for highly regulated customers.She joins the podcast to discuss what it takes to build technology from the region, overcoming internal doubt, why Arabic remains fundamentally underserved in AI, how human-in-the-loop systems will evolve rather than disappear, and why AI adoption fails unless it is driven top-down by leadership rather than delegated to teams.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps:00:00 The State of Arabic Content Online00:46 Introduction to Nour Al Hassan and Tarjama03:49 Nour's Entrepreneurial Journey07:43 Building and Evolving Tarjama21:14 The Rise of Arabic AI25:54 Building Custom AI Solutions26:56 The Importance of Data Quality29:19 Challenges in Arabic AI Development31:00 Real-World AI Applications34:49 Sales and Business Development38:20 Future of AI and Business Strategy-----------------------------------------------Thank you to the partners who make this possible:• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save.👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTARTPromo code: FWDSTARTSarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.• Hubpay – A fully digital, ADGM-regulated fintech platform that gives UAEbusinesses instant access to multi-currency accounts with named IBAN in 30+ currencies, payment links, payroll and more. No hidden fees, no minimum balance, and no waiting.👉 Open your Hubpay business account today and get 30-day free trial athttps://wearehubpay.com/pricing and scale your UAE business with confidence.-----------------------------------------------Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6GxkYxN2hNSvQsIOjjqyse?si=4f2f8be6b7294c8eSubscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fwdstart/id1859499563Subscribe on Anghami: https://open.anghami.com/mjWOJeeJ2YbFollow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Nour Al Hassan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nour-al-hassan-106778138/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

Arya Bolurfrushan is the Founder and CEO of Applied AI, the company behind Opus, a platform enabling enterprises to design AI-native workflows. The company raised a $42 million seed round in November 2022, days before ChatGPT launched, and earlier this year closed a $55 million Series A led by G42, with Palantir and Bessemer also participating.Before founding Applied AI, Arya developed his conviction during a Covid quarantine in the UAE, where time alone led him to conclude that AI would be the most significant shift in human productivity since hydrocarbons.He joins the podcast to discuss why he was "doing AI before it was cool," how the company had to rebuild its tech stack post-ChatGPT, why he believes democracies will struggle with AI-driven displacement, and how Opus is designed to keep humans as moral decision-makers rather than obsolete bystanders.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps:00:00 - Introduction04:04 - Raising Before ChatGPT Was Cool05:46 - The COVID Quarantine Epiphany10:30 - From Oil to Electricity: Why Applied AI is Like General Electric15:29 - Opus: Building the Machine That Builds Machines22:17 - Hiring Less Than 1% of Applicants & Building an AI-Native Team25:15 - Business Process Re-Engineering: Adding Humans to AI-Native Workflows30:41 - The Large Work Model: Mapping 2.7 Million Business Processes33:27 - Sharing Productivity Gains with Labour: Lessons from Das Kapital39:51 - The $2 Trillion Investor Who Believes Humans Will Have No Work44:57 - Building for His Son's Future in a World Where AI is Always Smartest-----------------------------------------------Thank you to the partners who make this possible:• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save.👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTARTPromo code: FWDSTARTSarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.• Hubpay – A fully digital, ADGM-regulated fintech platform that gives UAEbusinesses instant access to multi-currency accounts with named IBAN in 30+ currencies, payment links, payroll and more. No hidden fees, no minimum balance, and no waiting.👉 Open your Hubpay business account today and get 30-day free trial athttps://wearehubpay.com/pricing and scale your UAE business with confidence.-----------------------------------------------Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6GxkYxN2hNSvQsIOjjqyse?si=4f2f8be6b7294c8eSubscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fwdstart/id1859499563Subscribe on Anghami: https://open.anghami.com/mjWOJeeJ2YbFollow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Arya Bolurfrushan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bolurfrushan/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

Ibrahim Manna is the Founder and CEO of BRKZ, a Saudi construction tech startup built to address inefficiencies in construction procurement: fragmented supply chains, manual processes, and cash flow gaps faced by contractors and factories. Before founding BRKZ, Ibrahim spent eight years at Careem as one of the core architects of its expansion, launching 11 out of 15 markets ahead of the company's $3.1 billion acquisition by Uber in 2019. BRKZ has raised over $50 million in equity and debt financing, and serves 850+ contractors across major giga-projects including NEOM, King Salman Park, and Red Sea.He joins the podcast to discuss how buying a house during the pandemic revealed a broken industry, why Saudi's 7-8 layer supply chain creates massive inefficiency, what Careem taught him about building culture and empowering operators as founders, and how BRKZ is using technology to work with — not against — entrenched contractor behaviours.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps:00:00 – Introduction to Ibrahim Manana and BRKZ04:02 – Ibrahim's Early Entrepreneurial Endeavours07:35 – Lessons from Kareem11:11 – Challenges in Market Expansion22:37 – Leadership and Culture at Careem26:23 – Navigating Legal and Operational Hurdles28:59 – Stories from Iraq32:16 – Launching and Learning from Careem Cash34:58 – Transition to BRKZ36:27 – Identifying Gaps in the Construction Industry40:21 – Challenges and Innovations in Construction47:09 – The AI Story51:09 – Building Relationships and Customer Trust58:12 – Regional Tech Ecosystem and Entrepreneurship01:01:24 – Future Prospects and Final Thoughts-----------------------------------------------Thank you to the partners who make this possible:• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save.👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTART Promo code: FWDSTARTSarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.• Hubpay – A fully digital, ADGM-regulated fintech platform that gives UAEbusinesses instant access to multi-currency accounts with named IBAN in 30+ currencies, payment links, payroll and more. No hidden fees, no minimum balance, and no waiting.👉 Open your Hubpay business account today and get 30-day free trial athttps://wearehubpay.com/pricing and scale your UAE business with confidence.-----------------------------------------------Transcript: -----------------------------------------------Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6GxkYxN2hNSvQsIOjjqyse?si=4f2f8be6b7294c8eSubscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fwdstart/id1859499563Subscribe on Anghami: https://open.anghami.com/mjWOJeeJ2YbFollow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Ibrahim Manna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ibrahimmanna/Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------

Mark Kahn is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Omnivore, India’s leading agritech and climate-tech venture capital firm with more than $300 million under management. Backing over 45 startups transforming food, agriculture, and sustainability, Omnivore has played a defining role in shaping India’s agritech ecosystem and the country’s emerging climate investment landscape.He joins the podcast to discuss how Omnivore is building bridges between India and the GCC, why he’s not trading India’s deep venture ecosystem for newer regional opportunities, and how food sovereignty, controlled-environment agriculture, and life sciences innovation will define the next decade of climate resilience and food security.-----------------------------------------------Timestamps:0:00 - Intro4:00 - Why Omnivore isn't pivoting to MENA6:46 - India vs GCC venture ecosystems10:00 - India's IPO advantage14:45 - Food sovereignty vs food security22:00 - Controlled environment agriculture: hype vs reality28:00 - Why we avoided alt-protein34:15 - The agribusiness-first mindset40:15 - Mark's path from politics to agritech45:30 - Omnivore's evolution across three funds52:00 - The GMV trap in B2B marketplaces59:45 - Why India missed a beat on life sciences1:04:45 - Eruvaka exit: from shed prototype to Nutreco acquisition1:09:00 - Exit paths in Indian agritech1:11:00 - What value-add actually looks like1:13:45 - Building the India-GCC food bridge-----------------------------------------------Thank you to the partners who make this possible:• Sarwa – An all-in-one investing and money-management platform. It brings together do-it-yourself trading in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options with Sarwa Trade, hands-off investing with Sarwa Invest, and high-yield estimated returns with Sarwa Save.👉 Register using this link to be eligible for a $200 bonus when you fund $5,000 across your Sarwa accounts within three months of signing up:https://www.sarwa.co/register?promoCode=FWDSTART Promo code: FWDSTARTSarwa is regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. All investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.• Hubpay – A fully digital, ADGM-regulated fintech platform that gives UAEbusinesses instant access to multi-currency accounts with named IBAN in 30+ currencies, payment links, payroll and more. No hidden fees, no minimum balance, and no waiting.👉 Open your Hubpay business account today and get 30-day free trial athttps://wearehubpay.com/pricing and scale your UAE business with confidence.-----------------------------------------------Transcript: https://share.transistor.fm/s/1b43e0ae/transcript.txt-----------------------------------------------Follow Jamie Lane on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienlane/ Follow Jamie Lane on X:https://x.com/jamienlane Follow Mark Kahn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-kahn-20490a/ Follow FWDstart on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fwdstart/ Follow FWDstart on TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fwdstart Visit our Website:https://www.fwdstart.me/ Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://www.fwdstart.me/subscribe -----------------------------------------------