Welcome to The ALTS Forum

Hello, good afternoon everyone. Thank you so much for being with us today at the start of the alts forum. Uh my name is Ahmed Ali Alwan. I'm the CEO of hub 71. Uh as part of uh this year's Abu Dhabi Finance Week, I am proud to join the alts forum where the pri world of private equity, real estate, venture capital and beyond meet and where capital allocation and value creation increasingly become the same conversation.

Abu Dhabi Finance Week has grown into the region's leading finance and investment platform, bringing together the world's top minds under this year's theme, engineering the capital network. Today, Abu Dhabi anchors one of the most sophisticated investment and sovereign architectures in the world. Its leading investment institutions like Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Mubadela and ADQ manage globally diversified portfolio spanning private markets, public markets, real assets and frontier technologies, all built on long-term discipline, strategic clarity and conviction. Together they form an integrated investment landscape that the world increasingly refers to as the capital of capital not as a slogan but as a reflection of scale strategy and sustained impact in global markets. Our story however is not only financial, it is cultural and it is human.

Abu Dhabi is a city that invests in imagination as much as in industry where worldclass museums and creative institutions reflect our commitment to know knowledge openness and connection. And to that add to that the fundamentals that every human and every business values safety stability and society in Abu Dhabi these are not just ambitions they are lived realities together with forwardleaning regulation and patient institutional capital they create a value proposition that supports hub 71's mission and growth my own journey in private equity started at Moubadela where the mandate was to Think long term and commit with conviction. Over time, one insight became evident. Capital alone does not create outcomes. People do.

The operators, founders, builders who turn capital into capability. So our role at Hub71 is to build on Abu Dhabi's value proposition and shape an ecosystem where global ambition can translate into long-term growth and sustainable value creation. We structure initiatives, programs, and opportunities that connect founders to markets, to capital, and to talent. So, the strength of the Emirate translates into a startup's momentum. Today, the hub 71 community almost includes almost 300 startups from 60 nationalities, building across AI, climate, tech, digital assets, life sciences, and other key verticals.

Together they have raised close to 10 billion dirhams and generated nearly 5 billion dirhams in revenue to date. Which brings me back to the alts forum. In 2025, alternatives are no longer peripheral. They are central to institutional strategy. Private equity and private credit are maturing.

Venture is evolving. Infrastructure, real assets, and technology are increasingly interlin. The best allocators are not just hunting for yield. They are building ecosystems, aligning capital with policy, talent, innovation to create durable value. This is what Abu Dhabi has been engineering for years.

And we are here to connect global allocators, innovators, and operators to turn conversations into commitment, pilots into platforms, and capital into lasting impact across regions. Thank you, and welcome to the ALS form.