From Silicon Valley to a Silicon Oasis - Building Frontier Tech Startups in the Region

[Music] good afternoon my name is aazan am from Bloomberg turkey and we have a very interesting panel the title is from Silicon Valley to Silicon ois building Frontier Tech startups in the region from from left to right Mark ganzi CE of digital Bridge welcome Raj al- maaz CE of Credit Insurance sorry FAL Al hamadi managing partner of further Ventures Mark I want to start with you because we will talk about the region and you came all the way from bakaron Florida am I right yes what brought you to this region what are the opportunities here and when I was doing my homework I saw on your website it called my ey accelerating the digital Revolution what does your company do to accelerate the digital Revolution well look everything we're doing is about building the digital infrastructure that enables all of the content and all of the applications and all of the Genera to AI that everyone's talking about at this conference um somebody laughed at I was I was having a joke with somebody outside and I said well just think of me as the dumb plumber someone has to create the plumbing to make all of this work and so we've been in the GCC for over a decade our predecessor company was here for almost 20 years and so we've have got deep ties in the region and and we believe uh strongly about the future of the region and we think that digital infrastructure and the investors that are here understand the importance and the relevance of digital and how it can enable the economy to accelerate and move faster uh and you're seeing that here in the Gulf you're seeing how these economies have embraced digital you see it in the growth rates and you see really uh sovereigns and you see countries and investors that are embracing that change and are you doing any collaboration or Partnerships in the region yeah we have a bunch of Partnerships in the region um we work with most of the investors um across the GCC we announced um earlier this year a partnership with pif to build data centers in the Kingdom uh we announced last week a partnership with AIA to um go out and acquire uh infrastructure in the cell tower space uh in the United States and Europe so we've got a lot of deep ties to the investors here and uh we'll continue to partner with uh with our uh our trusted LPS here in the Gulf okay I want to listen your experience in in the next round Raja I know you from a long time since you were in the AFC in I know that you like helping the ecosystem uh what what is the importance of building an ecosystem and who are the players of the ecosystem for the investment well um uh as you know um technology has transformed all sectors and uh really to uh facilitate this growth of the ecosystem and the evolution as uh Mark mentioned is really to have a robust ecosystem that will enable this growth now this ecosystem has many components one of them is Talent one of them is regulation one of them is willingness of financial institutions and other institutions in general to open Innovation to experimentation and also to co-creation of Technology Solutions that are tailor made for the country for the community to facilitate um uh usage of those Services uh data has become the new uh fuel of life today and we have data everywhere between books and phones and devices and it's all over the place so how can you uh leverage on that data to contribute to the digital economy the UAE has a huge um economy diversification plan and digital economy is one of its pillars and there is a huge opportunity for us as the UAE to contribute to the growth of the economy from the digital economy Side by building investing in the right Talent investing in enablers of Technology facilitation platforms enabling institutions corporates and exporting those kind of services and Technologies from the UAE to the world thank you Fel yesterday I was in your further Network Summit and I you have an amazing team and companies congratulations R Bar mentioning about the uh ingredients of a good ecosystem she mentioned about Talent regulation but also she mentioned about partners and I know that you have good partners like Cumberland and web and what is the importance of having a good partner to build a good startup yeah absolutely so yesterday we did host an event U called the further Network Summit and uh we were overwhelmed with uh people that came uh it had a great turnout um and I was also speaking to the people that have organized the aity finance week and they told me that they're expecting to have you know 7 to 8,000 attendees I think they got more than 12,000 signups I think that's uh Testament that we have a strong Market fundamentals here uh whether it's the uh regulations eting business uh Capital Talent uh and that's why people are coming here with the Partnerships uh yes yesterday we um announced a few Partnerships with webn um and some of the Investments that we' we've made with them so besides the growth in participants we've also observed uh another difference which is that people come here not only to uh see what's happening people are starting to come here because they want to build Partnerships and close deals uh so yesterday we announced a deal uh where weben and further invested in a company called twin stake which provides institutional staking for digital assets and adgm is the ideal jurisdiction for this activity um and this is a testament of um how all the pieces can come together um and to build something unique here in ababi thank you forel Mark I I know that you are investing in figal digital infrastructure how does this can help Abu dhabi's ambition for building the digital economy well look you have to start somewhere right and I think um all all the businesses that that you're involved in require uh infrastructure from a perspective of where does that data sit how is that data created how is that data stored how is that data transmitted and then ultimately you have to adjudicate between the countries on where that data sovereignty is and you got to keep that data safe and so that's a big responsibility and to enable the ecosystem if you have good legislative framework like you have here in the UAE and you have good regulations and data s sovereignty is respected uh you create a safe environment where businesses want to be people want to invest here uh in the UAE and and candidly people want to put their uh headend operations in the GCC companies like us want to be here in the AGM because ultimately we feel safe and we feel like it's a place we can do business and um to your point it's a place where you can make Partnerships and Partnerships not just in the sense of capital formation but true Partnerships in the sense of building infrastructure building ecosystem investing in people and investing in the future in the region I think that's why we're here that's why we call uh this location our home okay R can you give some real use cases in UAE some initiative about the investment or startup ecosystem or maybe something from the credit eat Bureau so with regards to the UAE um it is has it has created an inclusive environment for Innovation so between the different Emirates and different jurisdictions you see a lot of initiatives accelerators incubators funds that are set up to enable those startups access the type of help that they need there are National Funds that are put in place to invest in those startups to take them through the Journey of uh acceleration and there are all of the programs and the mentorship and um I it's a really exciting ecosystem I have been involved in it for the longest time and it what excites me is really seeing those ideas get mental into uh MVPs and from MVPs to real solutions to funding to scaling and um between uh the different Emirates I think the contribution from the tech startup is uh is quite huge with regards to the digital economy but building on Mark's point I would like to highlight that the bigger opportunity for companies that set up and operate from the UA whether in Tech or trade um is the opportunity to export these uh Technologies and services from the UAE to the rest of the world and with regards to the ecosystem I just would like to uh highlight the role that we play atad Credit Insurance as the uh export Credit Company for the UA government is to protect those transactions so for example of those and now we started looking at technology services so if you have a company and you're exporting your services to uh clients all over the world then we can also protect your international trade and building on the uh comprehensive economic agreements that are being signed by the UA government to different countries we can facilitate global trade and investment opportunities for companies from the UAE to access the wider ecosystem okay F and I look at your portfolio companies I see fintech digital assets digital infrastructure are you focusing only on these sectors and why so from our side our strategy um is focused on two verticals uh fintech and digital assets and yes we're focused on a B2B approach because we believe that the Technologies and products that we building here will enable uh more companies to come and operate here uh so if you have a strong uh foundation in terms of regulations the next step is you need to also have the key enablers with regards to digital um infrastructure and from our side when we speak about digital assets we mean uh custody we mean the payment Trails we mean Insurance all the basic building blocks for the companies to operate in our market so yes it's great that we have a lot of companies coming to the UAE but we want to make sure that they localize their products and they're able to uh tap into the market here Mark in the beginning you mention about your relations with ad and PF are there any lessons that Abu Dhabi can take from this what are they telling about infrastructure and Technology well I think what you see particularly from from here in the UAE is a um a strong strategic push into the digital economy I think if you look at the asset allocation strategy of not only AIA but ADC eia um and some of the other uh Sovereign wealth funds and um pension systems you've seen a significant rotation in assets uh in the last five years you know if you go back and turn the clock back 5 10 years ago most of these funds were really allocating Capital to liquid strategies and hedge funds and and playing in public equities but now what you've seen is a maturation of those organizations where they're better uh in the UAE here in the Gulf um and I think that's a that's a big pivot from where uh investors were in the region 10 years ago the other thing is the allocation to digital uh here in the UAE if you take a look at the the council and you look at how the country has approached digital go back in time again to uh 2018 less than 3% of assets being invested were in digital um today that's somewhere almost near double digit almost 9% and ultimately this economy these investors want to be allocated 12 to 15% to digital whether it's in Ventures whether it's in private Equity whether it's in infrastructure so digital is really leading the way here um but I think that's a byproduct of really the fact that you have incredibly sophisticated organizations that have institutionalized themselves and are now competing and and as I said before just Best in Class okay lik to catch fut F Trends and now everybody's talking about AI but for you what will be the top three future Trends in technology so generative AI remains as a top Trend and I think it's uh it has been discussed in uh many panels but uh you know with the with the technology becoming the digital twin of our life all of the businesses all the transactions All The Regulators all the everything is happening on the on the internet and the cyber security becomes a huge huge huge risk for all organizations and if you've seen the last few months there have been huge attacks on different institutions with with regards to uh their cyber security so I believe cyber resilience and digital trust is going to be a very important element of the focus of the technology for the next few years how can the technology prove its a safe space for all of these transactions as it's claimed that it's going to uh speed all of these uh and make them transactions and make them easy but if you can't secure them that will be a major uh bottleneck and the third one I would say sustainable technology you know with the sustainability is a top priority uh in the UAE and we're hosting the cup 28 as we speak sustainable technology is becoming a top Trend in Tech and we will see that continue over the next uh decade because everybody is trying to include either the SGS in their developments or uh how do they count uh the footprints and the emissions and how do they register that to Future proof their Solutions uh for the years to come okay Fel you want to tell about what's the next buzz word your take or you can mention also about the talent importance of talent so I'm happy to talk about Talent uh so for those who know me I started my first company in 2006 I remember back then Talent was an issue I could not find people uh that could understand what we do and help us to achieve our goals but now in 20 uh 23 um I think we definitely have an edge here at the region when it comes to talent and I think that's a function of how the market grew over time so back to 2006 um it was difficult to get a trade license and the government did a lot to focus on ease of doing business um when I started my second company in 2011 um there was a lot more it it it was a more conducive environment for starting your business raising Capital then 2018 there's a huge influx of Talent come to to to thee what's different about 2023 is the fact that um right now and specifically in fintech and digital assets uh we are building a frontier technology and products here and what we realized is that um you can attract top top quality Talent if you give them the right ingredients to succeed and you're going to attract the ones that want the problem solve so if you give them the right Avenue of platform to solve for the problem that they're seeking to solve for uh then you're able to attract the best talent and I can give you examples so in our portfolio uh we have a an founder who moved from Canada with his family to Abu Dhabi he launched a he sold his custody business in the US and now he's here to help us build our cust business we also have a gentleman who moved from London who has domain expertise in pension Tech who's now helping us to build our savings program for xass in UAE so these are live examples of how you're getting domain experts to move to the UAE to build here thank you f actually I have more question but we are out of time Mark Raja Fel thank you very much a big Applause to our panelists thank