Redefining Abu Dhabi's Investment Strategy: Embracing Collaboration, Sustainability, and Talent

[Music] hi welcome everyone and welcome to abudhabi for everyone that's coming today and for the rest of us it's nice to see some friends and uh and meet some new people in the space um so today is Fireside so I'm I'm I'm Sonia golay as I mentioned I'm one of the general partners of venture souk Venture souk is an early stage uh VC based here in Abu Dhabi where we invest uh specific in fintech Investments out of one fund um so very very on topic today and here I have uh um a few of my friends with me um Ahmed and Mahmud welcome to the fireside chat gentlemen can you please maybe give yourself give you a bit of background on yourself we'll start on with ah there in alphabetical order thank you thank you Sonia thank you for the introduction um it's a pleasure to be here my name is Ahmed Ali alwan I'm the deputy CEO of 71 uh for those of you who are not familiar with hub71 we are the tech ecosystem enabler out of Abu Dhabi our mission is to grow and support startups to become globally enduring companies out of Abu Dhabi and we do that through a a set of programs and initiatives that support startups throughout their Journey but also forming Partnerships that support access to Talent access to Capital and access to Market um historically I've been to this day actually I've been with madala through different hats and I'm excited to be speaking alongside my colleagues and friends mahm and Sonia awesome thank you so much for having me here really appreciate it thank you Son thank you Ahmed my name is mahmudi I'm a founding partner at shuk we are a multi-stage multi-platform investment company started here in abudhabi now seven years ago and our Ambitions are quite uh I would say high we're trying to revolutionize and access to Capital and smart investing from early stage all the way to growth stage um and again be excited to be here to share some of the thing that we've been doing at um so the the kind of the purpose in the what we're we're going to be exploring today in this fire shy chat is Abu dhabi's investment strategies and and how collaborations take and Partnerships take center stage and and especially in our ecosystem that's really really true um so we'll start with Ahmed here on the um the focus of our discussion here so what let can you share some key insights into the current state of the tech startup ecosystem in Abu Dhabi and how the investment has uh has and its growth in the in the last evolved in the last recent years no thank you for this so um I'll take you back in time a little when we started h71 in 2019 and some of you might know this but I actually worked with Mahmud closely in the start of H 71 Mahmud was actually the first CEO of hub71 and I used to look after strategy and operations and at that point in time what we actually were focused on Mahmud knew a lot more about this than I did at the time um is just educating a lot of the um uh peers a lot of the network that we have here on what the opportunities are around VC and uh technology so um immediately it took us a time to ramp up to spread that um foresight in terms of technology is important and is here to stay for a long time obviously Co impacted a lot of people but it was the main trend of Technology adoption so all of the sudden everyone realized how important Tech was today we are at the RSE of that in the past 12 months I would say 18 months the amount of opportunities um internationally that we see coming to Abu Dhabi wanting to have establish a presence um and to grow and scale their business out of Abu Dhabi has been tremendous and this is capitalizing on yes I would like to say the great work that hub71 was doing in in um in collaborations with um our Venture Capital Partners such as Mahmud today and Sonia but also underpins how important Abu Dhabi is strategically as a geoeconomic hub to access the world um in terms of sectors they do cut across the board if I look at the sample I have is from Hub 71 we have more than 20 sectors represented um and we do see a lot of the more um Nova technology do coming here getting into more the Deep Tech side of things so AI digital assets have been huge themes over the six past six uh months to a year that have been gaining significant wind um uh maybe I'll wrap up with this in June we had the opportunity to host Sam Alman here um who was doing a road show and we didn't even ask for the opportunity it came to us because it's identified that Abu Dhabi has been investing a lot in Ai and ready cap to capitalize on this opportun and hopefully we're going to see a lot more towards that very thank you very much mm um emphasizing collaboration within its Tech its technology ecosystem how do you see this emphasis on collaboration translating to investment uh particularly for Founders who fund raise so Abu Dhabi has a quite unique position um as being kind of really positioned as the capital of capital and that's one usually one side of the equation when we talk about Founders and Entrepreneurship the second uh side of the of the equation usually is markets entrepreneurs Founders talent and also industry enablers so one of the collaboration areas that I'm quite fascinated and excited about is the access to the really deep infrastructure that has been built in this country so I'll give one example if we look at what g42 has been doing when it come to uh cloud computing and advanced Computing um uh and the research that has been done there and also if you look at some of the Arabic llm that got developed there these things did not happen overnight these actually been happening over very strategic very intentional investment that been happening in this country so if I'm today I'm a Founder who have developed uh I'll give an example from our portfolio some of our kind of companies that are in the biotech they have developed some machine learning um algorithm for uh kind of cure uh protein cure uh sort of kind of calculation and all of that right they are hting today a ceiling this companies in Egypt they are Hing hitting a ceiling on the ability on on on on on Computing right and through the partnership that we have here with the player in in Abu Dhabi we can unlock that right and uh we can provide some some facility for them to access and to start quadruple uh their R&D and test their product not only in the biotech we do have another example in the oil and gas we do have uh companies that are using tremendous amount of computing power for simulation for the under surface and and and and stimulation of weals and what have you and again at at at at the uh the size of the startup usually these these resources are quite expensive and not available so really knowing um uh the the the different institutions that are well established here that can give you that uh Competitive Edge as an as an entrepreneur quite remarkable I'll talk about another industry so in the healthcare one one uh quite uh unique position that we have in abudhabi as well is the forward looking of our department of uh of Department of Health right so so today if I want to test a new uh uh like a Sandbox for Health Care is I can argue is actually you can establish quite E relatively easier boundaries and E easier testing bit for you to to test with the new new product right with the kind of controlled environment before you can go to like a market like the US and a market like Europe right and this is something again that entrepreneurs even if they are building something outside today they are having challenges with accessing that sort of kind of Regulation you can come here you and and if you have the right relationship and the right connections and you can get the Right audience you can really establish uh an advantage for you that can help you so we we do believe that the best Founders are do our Founders not only are able to access the capital which is quite uh obvious but also are able to unlock unique partnership for them to have access to to kind of competitive advantage that not available in in other places absolutely for from the perspective of a fast growing Tech startup ecosystem how critical are collaborations with other businesses investors and industries for fostering Innovation and growth they are um of course critical for any business to succeed um I'll highlight maybe an advantage that uh we have in Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates that doesn't exist elsewhere or other jurisdictions um we have here what I would call regulatory agility in the sense that we can provide Nimble access constructive um feedback from our founder from our partner community into the government and when we talk about what we anchor our Partnerships with are beyond the you know different value equative activities that we would have uh together from events to engagements to identifying opportunities but also giving them their opportunities to grow this ecosystem alongside us and we've seen this module has been tremendous um we are set up here in the adgm the abudhabi global market um they work with us on a couple of our key ecosystem initiatives such as what we're doing around digital assets making sure the partners have a voice to be heard that we're able to channel to a progressive regulator such as the adgm and ultimately if needed through the Department of Economic Development um not only its relationships but also how the leadership structure works so our chairman his Excellency Ahmed Z zabi is also the chairman of the um um adgm and also the chairman of the deed we have to be constructive we have to use um the time with our leadership in the optimal way but if we are able to present uh you know value adding solutions they get heard relatively quickly and they get addressed relatively uh quickly and obviously this underpins a lot of the Partnerships we have it it makes us a more of an attractive destination to come and collaborate uh with I think yeah that's a very good point I think the government support that um companies get here that is very different than in other other ecosystems is is a is a really good one to to note and especially through you know hub71 where they can help them navigate this this system and even Regulators as well which a lot of other ecosystems just don't have that support for startups so it's a it's it's a bit hard to grow um which is very unique here okay we look if we look at Abu dhabi's Capital ecosystem mm what what specific gaps do you identify in the current capital ecosystem in Abu Dhabi that need urgent attention to Foster the growth of tech startups well as an investor I would say we we always uh welcome more Capital if you give me an open-ended question like this I would say we need more across all the value chain but to be more specific and more precise um and this is not specific to Abu dhab I would say for the entire region early stage and when we talk about early stage kind of see the stage usually is an area that's quite messing I would take as Z barbel so in the early stage and the kind of growth stage um uh and um I do I do kind of want to emphasize that each one of us has has a play to uh kind or or or a role to kind of fill in the Gap um you have of course the institution when we talk about us as a venture capital we talk about Angel Investors we talk about families we talk about family and friends um uh we need more participation from all of those people and and usually it to start with a culture of risk-taking and and a culture of you know what like look we are excited about like funding the next new big thing right now the challenge as usually is the next big thing does not happen tomorrow the next big thing does take a lot of time and effort right and in in my humble view is uh to kind of see the full cycle roll over and you have a kind of fly flying flywheel effect is you need the end of the uh of the cycle to actually convert the end of the cycle for us is an IPO right or a significant m&a um uh and uh usually I always whenever I engage with the leaders um like in Abu Dhabi in the country or in the region I always try to kind of position uh a role for for for the larger stake stakeholders to play a role at kind of really tipping the market and I think we have enough voice that has been created over the past 10 years and there are a few um nice opportunity out there that are waiting for being harvested and looking for someone to tip them um uh so that's an area and an opportunity where uh can Abu Dhabi ecosystem can really come in together and play a leadership role in tipping off the market um and create that success stories the moment that you do that I do believe that actually the the the private sector and the uh uh Market participant being again family offices Angel hi with individual will actually fuel more growth from the bottom up so that Vis that cycle once it's created it's become really powerful and very hard to stop I would say that what essentially have created the valley and and if we take a step back and just think about what happened in the valley the valley was was created at the back of a significant overinvestment in this defense industry that created significant Supply and the semiconductor right until that moment that then you have entrepreneurs who leveraged that created companies Market tipped with m&as and IPOs then ended up with an a com bubble um which if you if the history were to stop there we would look back and say like look that's terrible but actually history never sto at one point in time history continued to be built and continue to be written now if I look at the at the sort of kind a market capitalization of companies I don't even notice when was aom bubble um uh so bringing this back to us and to Abu Dhabi and to shuk we we continue to be extremely bullish and excited that tipping is about to happen and we want to be player in that and we are we are actively engaging and supporting different Market participant on that and I'll just build on this because uh it's a very important topic that both Mahmud and I are passionate about which is really activating the capital ecosystem here because we see the same gaps across the journey um Abu Dhabi has $1.3 trillion of AUM we of sovereign wealth just sitting out of here but predominantly being Sovereign wealth it's invested internationally today we see more of an as good of an opportunity as ever to um deploy a sliver of that into the region and uh Mahmood like me has been knocking on all doors making sure that the opportunity here is are taken as seriously if not more seriously um compared to the rest of the world I do agree with Mahmud that you do feel it's almost there it's just once it happens it's going to hopefully just keep uh uh skyrocketing from there uh the beauty of um uh what Abu Dhabi has is actually um all the infrastructure exists uh from the Capital Market you know the exchange um the setup the legal support the governance mechanism the the um safety of your assets a lot of critical things to make a strong Capital ecosystem Thrive our seamless here for us our role is to make sure there's enough value there's a lot of enough volume and more validation of this existing structure out of Abu Dhabi yeah Absolut absolutely agree um and and also it's particularly on the early the early early stage like the angels and the great the later stage now even later stage we're relying a lot on foreign Capital to come in to to lead these rounds for us especially including MC tabi just closed a large round with Wellington as the lead and that was foreign Capital coming in um so it would be nice to see you know that being that internally we got to onore the capit definitely um Ahmed how do you envision creating opportunities for both BCS and corporates to actively support and contribute to the growth of startups in Abu Dhabi so for us it's if I go back and I think one of the things that I love about H 71 and what we've uh built um is we've underpinned it by a community ultimately we've really focused on the first instance of Hub 71 on the entrepreneurship journey and this is something that Mahmud and I used to workshop with the team together is really how to make this space appealing for Founders the first contract actually we had is like well Abu zabi is great a bit too expensive maybe for some Founders let's create an kind incentive program where we're retaining value for Abu Dhabi at the same time um alleviating some of the elements of the cost structor from uh for Founders and for the companies so they set up what naturally happened is a community formed because all of these companies now are in this together they're talking to each other they're going through the same challenges and they're building it out so um creating that critical mass around entrepreneurship um and that's what Hub 71 is it is first and foremost a a community centered on what entrepreneurs are trying to achieve um we continue to do this we see our community thriving to this day thankfully we do see a lot of we do hear and see a lot of um positive feedback around the community that has been built out house 71 but now that we focused on the entrepreneurship Journey not that we're taking anything away from that it's time to focus on the technology Journey we've had a value proposition that focus on entrepreneurs now it's a value proposition um that would focus on technology I mentioned AI I mened assets all spaces and future work so s Solutions Enterprise Solutions all ver iCal that we are well positioned to capitalize on and this is what we would like to embark on to create environments and opportunities from funds to entrepreneurs or to startups that would uh be attractive for anyone to invest in thank you um okay mm okay to conclude for both for both of you what are the most exciting opportunities in Abu dhabi's Tech startup ecosystem and the investment landscape in the coming years venture andk that's a pit promo apprciate that M would you like to start well I would start with hub71 is a great place of course to start um and of course there is a lot of kind of personal relationship here and and love and affinity for for the space um uh but on on on a more kind of serious note um like in my view there is always uh like no better time than today to to build great companies and uh when markets scale back real entrepreneurs scale up right it is noise is not there um Believers and Visionaries kind of focus their their brain and their mindsets on on solving big problems and Abu Dhabi is is a like has a great platform for you not to solve for only the city or the country but for the region and Beyond and I think that's what I'd like to invite everyone to think about whether it is in AI or Healthcare or in deep Tech or traditional ftech um all of those uh businesses are great for me it is really about what's your passion where do you see a dislocation right and the uncertainity that we going um that's happening right now does create a lot of uh dislocation on a human capital dislocation Market dislocation on a lot of things and the entrepreneurs are the people who can seize those opport unities and really put their heads down and and build so uh um no better time than building um there is no perfect time you just need to start um and just let it go I would say I agree with what Mahmud said and it's difficult for me to kind of double down or say that oh there's one sector or one theme that's um important I I again mentioned Ai and digital assets which have prominent but uh we do our startups are represent 20 more than 20 sectors so we're pretty cutting across there are six sectors that we focus on in terms of fintech health Tech edch mobility legistics and travel um um food Tech and climate Tech this being the year of sustainability obviously in the UAE but these are pretty in incoming um maybe it's by nurture um going through H 71 but we tend to be more people focused uh we tend to focus on the ability of entrepreneurs to be able to grow Drive the business and um and be able to effectively hustle to take their business to the next level CU I say this all the time um we do not help startups we give startups the opportunity to help themselves we're going to bring to you opportunities with the leadership with the corporates but we're not going to be there telling anyone to do x y and z um for the company per se what we want you to do is to make the most of these opportunities but because there are very few places out there that will give you um these opportun thank you gentlemen I think we have uh time for a couple questions uh so if there's any any questions from the audience I don't think so okay great thank you gentlemen thank you so much for your time we really appreciate it um and thank you for your insights and I hope you we hope you all have a great day thank you thank you for having us thank [Applause] you