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In this exclusive interview, we sit down with Deepali Nangia and Rana Abdel Latif, the partners leading Speedinvest's first dedicated Middle East and Africa fund, a flagship vehicle for the Vienna-based firm that's been quietly investing across emerging markets since 2013, backing the likes of the likes of Moove, FairMoney, Khazna, Abhi, Flow48 and Pemo.
Earlier this week, Speedinvest announced the fund with anchor commitments from Mubadala (through its MENA Venture Capital Fund), the Qatar Investment Authority (via its newly expanded $3B Fund of Funds programme) and EIB Global, which took the anchor on the Africa-dedicated vehicle with a €40M commitment signed in March.
The fund will invest across fintech, embedded finance, health, climate, AI, consumer and digital infrastructure, targeting the Series A and B capital gap that Deepali and Rana have identified across MENAPT and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The headlines make it sound like an overnight success, but as Deepali and Rana are quick to admit the reality is that this fundraise has been closer to a three-year marathon.
Rana has been investing in the region since 2006, most recently running FinTech investments at Nclude in Cairo. Deepali joined Speedinvest to lead gender investing at the firm and has since become the driving force behind its broader emerging markets thesis, including its Micro GP programme backing female and diverse fund managers.
Deepali and Rana are honest about the ups and downs, thoughtful on where capital really needs to flow in Africa and MENA right now, and refreshingly unsparing about the tech bro renaissance that's quietly reversing a lot of DEI progress in European and American VC.
We cover:
The real fundraising timeline behind the headlines, and why raising from sovereigns and DFIs looks a lot more like an enterprise sales cycle than anything else.
Why Speedinvest shifted from opportunistic deals across emerging markets to a dedicated regional strategy with boots on the ground.
The inside story of landing QIA, Mubadala and EIB, and how the sovereign narrative has shifted from "invest in our country" to "what can you bring us from outside."
Why Series A and B is the real capital gap in Africa, and how they're thinking about complementing equity with debt, callable equity (the NICE facility with STV is the worked example) and potentially securitisation down the line.
Where the real FinTech opportunities sit, the long tail of underserved SMEs and consumers, the rise of AI-native fintechs rebuilding the plumbing, and why embedded finance in logistics, agriculture and mobility is under-appreciated.
How AI is changing the economics of running a VC firm, and what a flatter, leaner fund looks like as LPs start squeezing management fees.
How Rana learned to underwrite currency risk in Egypt across multiple step devaluations, and why you can still make excellent returns if you price the 8 to 10% annual devaluation into your model.
The tech bro renaissance, why it's quietly reversing progress right now, and what allyship from the top actually looks like in practice.
Timestamps
00:00 – Intro
01:00 – What is Radiant and the Brookfield deal
05:00 – Adding character to "boring" infrastructure
09:00 – Leaving Lebanon at 19: taxi to Damascus
12:00 – Why drama school? Arts meets technology
16:00 – Room One and the path to founding Ori
19:00 – Raising money for speculative tech in the UK
23:00 – The ChatGPT moment and going all in on AI
26:00 – Building the team: right people over best people
31:00 – Hiring for exceptional work over experience
37:00 – Sovereign AI and the Gulf data center push
45:00 – Are we overinvesting in AI infrastructure?
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