If you are still searching for the right co-founder, or weighing up whether to go it alone, know that you are far from the only one.
Finding a complementary co-founder is about balance. Know what you need and what you don’t have – then find someone you respect enough to handle that realm completely.
Co-founders are like a marriage, the cliché goes. But beyond the saying, how do you actually choose the person (or people) you’ll build with? And how do you set that relationship up for long-term success?
Spelling out the hard stuff early; equity division, vesting schedules, roles and titles, decision rights, departure clauses – can save enormous pain down the road.
Even the “perfect” co-founder pairing will run into friction. In fact, you should expect it. A bit of creative tension is often the hallmark of a strong founding team. The difference lies in how you handle it.
A variety of approaches, from gut-feel heuristics to deliberate trial periods, to vet a co-founder match.
Founded by Abed Kasaji and Pavel Kochetkov, both part of the “Careem mafia”, Clarity rebranded this year from its former name Anecdote.
Founded in 2018 by Esam Alnahdi and Maher Loubieh, HALA provides SME banking and freelancer solutions designed to simplify how small businesses start, run, and grow.
Lean’s Mehdi Tazi on why revenue in Saudi still skews to data while the UAE is driven by payments, how the firm applies Maslow’s hierarchy to merchant needs, and what A/B testing reveals about consumer trust.
The facility, among the largest of its kind in the Middle East, refinances and expands a prior Goldman-arranged debt package, with commitments potentially rising to $2.4 billion.
Amir Farha on Property Finder and the last mile of venture investing, a new $200M growth-stage fund, Revolut gets UAE nod, Noon eyes $10BN dual Saudi-UAE listing, plus this week’s MENA startup, VC, and tech news round-up.
Venture investing is won and lost in the final stretch. Using Careem and Property Finder as case studies, Amir Farha explores how compounding, timing, and investor courage determine whether funds deliver liquidity or leave multiples on the table.
Replit was founded in 2016 by Amjad Masad, a Jordanian-born engineer, alongside Faris Masad and Haya Odeh, and has now raised around $478 million to date.
How Ali's early experiences shaped the mission, why defaults can be reduced to near zero, and what a post–credit score world could look like for businesses across the region.
The vehicle will back firms at the growth and pre-IPO stage through a mix of equity and secondary transactions, prioritising businesses with scalable platforms and alignment to Saudi Vision 2030’s digital transformation agenda.
The move positions the London-based fintech, which now serves over 60 million customers worldwide, to roll out its full product suite to UAE users.
This week on VC React, we debate Qatar’s $13B stake in Anthropic, test Munify’s play for the $30B Egyptian remittance market, and break down Intella’s Arabic digital human, Ziila.
Founded in 2023 by Omar Alami, Ora’s super-app bundles P2P payments, an e-commerce marketplace, on-demand services, chat, and social networking into a single platform.
Founded in 2024 by Ahmed Rian and Abdulaziz Almubayad, the startup addresses inefficiencies in the Kingdom’s fragmented construction supply chain by creating a digital marketplace that links wholesale suppliers of building materials with retailers and real estate developers.
