TheBitCast

FWDstart

Autor: Jamie Lane

The FWDstart Podcast is a weekly show at the intersection of venture capital, startups, and strategic industries shaping the MENA region. Each episode features candid conversations with founders, investors, and operators behind the region’s most ambitious companies, from frontier AI and fintech infrastructure to climate tech, construction, energy, and space.

Odcinki

  1. How to raise a fund in the Gulf, with Stride’s Fariha Ansari Javed – FWDstart
  2. Shorooq’s Shane Shin on Why Gulf Startups Still Struggle to Exit, Picking Founders and Building the Blackstone of the Middle East – FWDstart
  3. SPICE's Zeid Husban on Shaking Up Saudi Dining and Building His Third Startup – FWDstart
  4. Stride Ventures’ Ishpreet Singh Gandhi on $1B in Credit, Equity Dilution and Expanding to the Gulf – FWDstart
  5. COLABS’ Omar Shah on Saudi, Coworking Economics and Building Across the GCC – FWDstart
  6. How to Raise a Seed Round in MENA: MilkStraw's Jawad Shreim and Orbii's Nauman Ali on FOMO, Term Sheets and Choosing VCs – FWDstart
  7. Quiqup’s Bassel El Koussa on Raising $65M, Surviving Uber and Rebuilding in Dubai – FWDstart
  8. Bayzat’s Talal Bayaa on Raising $55M, Running Out of Runway and the Pressure to Deliver an Exit – FWDstart
  9. Bayt’s Rabea Ataya on 26 Years of Building and Why the Old MENA Startup Playbook No Longer Works – FWDstart
  10. Algebra AI’s Anis Harb on Raising $7M, Leaving Deliveroo After a Decade, and Why Managed AI Services Are Booming – FWDstart
  11. Lean Technologies’ Tewfik Cassis on Launching Pay by Bank, Building the AWS for Fintech, and Why Stablecoins Could Transform Payments – FWDstart
  12. ClearGrid's Mohammad Al-Khalili on Building AI for a Trillion-Dollar Debt Market – FWDstart
  13. Comfi's Sanjar Samiev and Denis Gavrilin on Raising $65M and Building B2B BNPL for MENA's SMEs – FWDstart
  14. Rana Abdel Latif & Deepali Nangia (Speedinvest) on Raising from QIA, EIB, and Mubadala, Why Fintechs Are the New Incumbents, and What Catalytic LPs Actually Do – FWDstart
  15. Mahdi Yahya (Ori / Radiant) on Getting Acquired by Brookfield, Building the Backbone of Sovereign AI, and Why Intelligence Is Infrastructure – FWDstart
  16. Alex Epure (Qureos) on Raising $5M from Prosus, The Future of Hiring in a Post-AI World, and The Truth About Job Displacement – FWDstart
  17. Glenn Harwood (AlgoDriven) on the Future of SaaS, Exiting for 8 Figures from Dubai, and Expanding to Fourteen Countries On Only $3M – FWDstart
  18. Hassan Fayed (Aydi) on Building AI for Every Farmer on Earth and Why Software Has Failed Agriculture – FWDstart
  19. Fouad Jeryes (Maqsam) on Why MENA's Fragmentation is the Opportunity, Why Arabic AI Benchmarks are BS, & Why Your Competitors are Your Best Salespeople – FWDstart
  20. Talal Hasan (44.01) on Turning CO2 Into Rock, The Journey From Omani VC to Earthshot Winner, & Why Transportation is Carbon's Real Bottleneck – FWDstart
  21. Djamel Mohand (Governata) on The Rocket Internet Baptism of Fire, Scaling Foodics to 30K Restaurants & Why Your Data Isn't AI-Ready – FWDstart
  22. Alina Truhina (Utopia) on Why Copy-Pasting Western VC Fails, The Myth of 2-and-20 Fees in Emerging Markets, & Establishing a Fund in Qatar – FWDstart
  23. Rami Tabbara (Stake) on The Saudi Real Estate Explosion, Tokenising Real Estate Assets & Why Work Life Balance is a Myth – FWDstart
  24. Nafez Dakkak (Anara Capital) on Why AI Tutors Will Fail, Is MENA EdTech's "Sleeping Giant" & Solving the Arabic Literacy Crisis – FWDstart
  25. Nour Al Hassan (Arabic AI, Tarjama) on Building Arabic AI from MENA, Why Most Pilots Fail, and Hiring Only A Players – FWDstart
  26. Arya Bolurfrushan (AppliedAI) on Raising $42M for AI Before ChatGPT, The Future of Work & Why AI Needs Human Supervisors – FWDstart
  27. Ibrahim Manna (BRKZ) on Lessons from Careem, Founder Grit & Disrupting Saudi Construction – FWDstart
  28. Mark Kahn (Omnivore) on GCC Food Security, India’s Venture Depth & Agritech Investing – FWDstart