Jamie Lane

Jamie Lane is the co-founder of FWDstart, a Gulf/MENA-focused tech and venture publication aiming to be the region’s referential source for rigorous analysis and original reporting. Based in Abu Dhabi, Jamie’s coverage spans AI, fintech, and the evolving capital stack in MENA. He also hosts the VC React podcast. Before FWDstart, he led digital strategy at a pan-European B2B publishing house, overseeing editorial, subscriptions, and commercial operations.

AI is eating legal work, so why aren't MENA startups queuing up?

Harvey is worth $8 billion, and Anthropic just sent LexisNexis to its worst day since 1988. Legal AI is the hottest vertical in tech, and the GCC is almost entirely absent from it. We spoke to the founders of the region's only funded legal AI startup to understand the structural reasons why, what they're building in response, and whether there's a path through.

Mar 18, 2026

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22 min read

Kudwa's Karl Nasr on pivoting from expense management, bootstrapping first, and why hallucinations have to be zero

The Kudwa co-founder and CEO talks pivoting from Numu Cards, building an AI finance platform from MENA, and why he bootstrapped to paying customers before taking a dollar of outside money.

Mar 18, 2026

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16 min read

Talabat proposes share buyback after stock drops more than 50% from IPO price

The buyback, subject to shareholder approval at the company's annual general meeting on April 13, would be executed over up to two years through open-market transactions on the DFM.

Mar 17, 2026

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3 min read

The Future of Hiring in a Post-AI World

Alex Epure started Qureos as a side project helping students land their first job in Dubai. He survived the post-ZIRP downturn, pivoted to AI, and has now raised $5M from Prosus Ventures, Salica Oryx Fund, COTU Ventures, and PlusVC to build a hiring platform that's compressing timelines from months to as little as six days.

Mar 16, 2026

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6 min read

Exclusive: Kudwa closes $1.1M for AI-powered finance platform with backing from MENA, US and UK investors

The round, backed by 1818 Venture Capital, F6 Ventures, and Sparked VC, will fund product development and multi-geography GTM expansion.

Mar 16, 2026

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5 min read

Amjad Masad becomes a billionaire, Shorooq joins $1.03B seed round

Jordanian-founded Replit triples valuation to $9B, inDrive acquires Pakistan's Krave Mart, Oman's SWF leads a $131.5M round in Uzbekistan fintech, plus this week’s MENA startup, VC, and tech news round-up.

Mar 13, 2026

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12 min read

Egyptian martech startup Converted acquires fashion e-commerce platform Mitcha

Mitcha's network of more than 300 local fashion designers will be integrated into Converted's AI-powered advertising platform, which serves thousands of merchants across Egypt and Saudi Arabia and is launching a new product that ties ad spend directly to verified sales rather than clicks.

Mar 13, 2026

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2 min read

inDrive acquires Pakistan's Krave Mart as the ride-hailing app pushes deeper into quick commerce

The all-stock deal, first agreed last year, has been approved by Pakistan's Competition Commission. inDrive is already the most downloaded ride-hailing app in Pakistan, Egypt, and Morocco, and has been scaling grocery delivery in the country since January through a partnership with Krave Mart.

Mar 13, 2026

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3 min read

Shorooq joins $1B seed round in Yann LeCun's AMI Labs, one of the largest AI seed financings ever, at a $3.5B pre-money valuation

The Abu Dhabi-based firm invested alongside Bezos Expeditions, Temasek, and NVIDIA, in the Paris-headquartered startup, which is building "world model" AI systems designed to reason about physical environments rather than just predict text.

Mar 12, 2026

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3 min read

Jordanian founder Amjad Masad's Replit triples valuation to $9B, as it targets $1B in ARR by year-end

The AI developer platform, founded in 2016 by Masad alongside Faris Masad and Haya Odeh, has raised a $400M Series D led by Georgian, with Qatar's QIA among the backers.

Mar 12, 2026

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3 min read

A rare MENA exit, and the future of SaaS

AlgoDriven raised $3M from the likes of Global Ventures and 500 Global, to turn a frustration with how dealerships valued used cars into an all-cash, eight-figure exit to Emergence Software in San Francisco.

Mar 10, 2026

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6 min read

Iran strikes knock out AWS, CBUAE grants emergency cloud waivers

How Sarwa and Abhi got their platforms back online, the UAE Central Bank grants emergency waivers for overseas data centres, TruDoc Healthcare secures $15M pre-Series B, plus this week’s MENA startup, VC, and tech news round-up.

Mar 6, 2026

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12 min read

Inside the AWS outage that took down UAE fintechs

Drone strikes knocked out two of AWS's three UAE data centres, taking Sarwa, Abhi, and a dozen other platforms offline. FWDstart spoke to the CEOs steering two of those companies through the crisis to find out what it actually looked like from inside the building.

Mar 6, 2026

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14 min read

How GCC Founders and Investors Are Navigating The Strikes

On missiles, fintechs going dark, and the strange normalcy in between.

Mar 4, 2026

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11 min read

Careem confirms full service restoration after overnight AWS migration

The super app's rides, Hala, and payments services went down with Sunday's AWS outage.

Mar 3, 2026

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2 min read

AWS data centre in the UAE struck by "objects," taking fintech startups offline as Iranian missiles hit the Gulf

Unidentified objects struck an Amazon Web Services facility in the UAE on Sunday, triggering a fire and a cascading outage across at least 38 cloud services. Sarwa, Stake, Liv by Emirates NBD, and ADCB all reported disruptions.

Mar 2, 2026

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4 min read

Peak XV's $1.3B raise, Bosta lines up Egypt IPO

Deliveroo exits Qatar, Presight-Shorooq Fund reveals first five investments from $100M AI fund, Brookfield acquires Wa'ed Ventures-backed Ori Industries, plus this week’s MENA startup, VC, and tech news round-up.

Feb 27, 2026

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12 min read

G42 opens job applications for AI agents, joining a global race to put bots on the org chart

The Abu Dhabi technology group, which last year led a $55 million round in Applied AI and is building chip safeguards to satisfy Washington, has begun recruiting AI agents into structured enterprise roles.

Feb 27, 2026

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4 min read

Bosta lines up Egypt's first tech logistics IPO in a deal worth up to $170 million

The Cairo-based delivery startup is preparing to float 20% to 30% of its shares on the Egyptian Exchange by the end of 2026, with EFG Hermes managing an offering that would raise roughly $170 million and mark the EGX's first listed parcel-delivery company.

Feb 27, 2026

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5 min read

Peak XV raises $1.3B amid partner exodus while quietly deepening its MENA portfolio

The firm formerly known as Sequoia India closed its first independent fundraise after three senior partners departed over a profit-sharing dispute on a 52x return. Meanwhile, GV Ravishankar has been quietly building from Dubai, sitting on the boards of Tabby, Huspy, and Lean Technologies, and leading four MENA deals in the past year.

Feb 27, 2026

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8 min read

Fundraising 101 for MENA VCs

Eight of the region's top VCs on the mechanics of raising a fund in MENA: where the LP capital actually sits, finding anchors, pitching sovereigns, and what it takes to survive a fundraise that will almost certainly take twice as long as you think.

Feb 25, 2026

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22 min read

How can MENA VC firms grow the LP base

MENA's GPs are all chasing the same fifteen LPs. The ones who'll win the next decade are those who grow the pie – converting corporates, unlocking university endowments, and selling the region to international capital that doesn't yet know it should be here.

Feb 25, 2026

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13 min read

How to navigate MENA LP mandates strategic capital, and the fine print

In MENA, almost every LP cheque comes with strings attached – sovereign mandates, strategic deal flow expectations, geographic constraints. The GPs who thrive are the ones who know which strings to accept, which to negotiate, and which to walk away from entirely.

Feb 25, 2026

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13 min read

Guide to navigating MENA VC fundraising timelines

Feb 25, 2026

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14 min read

How to pitch your fund to MENA LPs

LPs have heard the MENA macro pitch a hundred times. The best GPs know when to lead with deals, when to sell the story, and when to do both – plus why the deck that looks like everyone else's is already dead on arrival.

Feb 25, 2026

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10 min read