Interview

Fintech

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

Mar 18, 2026

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16 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.

Jamie Lane

Interview

The Trillion-Dollar Shift From Sick Care to Prevention

Jan 21, 2026

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23 min read

The Trillion-Dollar Shift From Sick Care to Prevention

Flipping the insurance model in MENA from sick care to prevention, why the industry's biggest players are finally paying attention, and how far away are we from insurance being priced on biological age rather than chronological age?

Jamie Lane

Fintech

How Lean Technologies builds around the merchant’s hierarchy of needs

Sep 15, 2025

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10 min read

How Lean Technologies builds around the merchant’s hierarchy of needs

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.

Jamie Lane

Fintech

Nauman Ali on Orbii's $3.6M Seed round, the death of credit scores, and establishing trust with lenders

Sep 11, 2025

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13 min read

Nauman Ali on Orbii's $3.6M Seed round, the death of credit scores, and establishing trust with lenders

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.

Jamie Lane

Interview

Inside the shifting landscape of debt financing in the Gulf

Aug 27, 2025

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10 min read

Inside the shifting landscape of debt financing in the Gulf

Armineh Baghoomian, Managing Director and EMEA Head at PFG, reflects on the $300M they’ve deployed across MENA, the region’s debt literacy evolution, why Tabby was an obvious bet, the typical ranges in the Gulf for spreads, fees, warrants, and covenants, the green (and red) flags they watch for when founders come knocking, and what excites her most about RNPL and B2B BNPL.

Jamie Lane

Interview

Aug 6, 2025

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11 min read

How AI is changing software testing

Two Tunisian founders behind one of Africa’s biggest startup exits are back, and targeting the slowest part of modern software delivery. Fresh off the back of a $9M Seed round, Karim Jouini shares how Thunder Code's AI‐driven “personas” test like domain experts, why early dilution can be a superpower, and the surprising policy shift that could reverse Tunisia’s brain drain.

Jamie Lane

Interview

Building the GCC's first embedded insurance platform

Jul 18, 2025

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4 min read

Building the GCC's first embedded insurance platform

Yasmina’s CEO Masoud Alhelou on why insurance might be the next great fintech unlock in the region, what it takes to get regulatory approval in Saudi, how the team landed 12 distribution deals without a single salesperson.

Jamie Lane

Interview

Jun 18, 2025

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13 min read

Why Iraq is MENA's sleeping giant

What it takes to build a startup in Iraq, lessons from launching Careem, and why fragmentation, not TAM, is the real signal for venture-scale opportunity in frontier markets.

Jamie Lane

Interview

May 28, 2025

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9 min read

Arabic healthcare: for us, by us

Why obesity in the GCC isn’t just medical, how GLP-1s could be the iPhone of health, why D2C is a necessary (but temporary) proving ground, and what asynchronous care gets right about shame and scale.

Jamie Lane

Interview

Building the AI voice for global storytelling

May 21, 2025

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11 min read

Building the AI voice for global storytelling

Why localisation is the hardest problem in GenAI, how to build foundational AI in an ecosystem still playing catch-up, and why Dubai doesn’t need more capital, it needs more conviction.

Jamie Lane, +1

Interview

AdalFi: Powering credit infrastructure across emerging markets

May 7, 2025

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30 min read

AdalFi: Powering credit infrastructure across emerging markets

What it takes to digitise lending inside legacy banks without triggering resistance, how to underwrite customers with no formal credit history, and why AdalFi’s refusal to lend may be its biggest strategic moat.

Jamie Lane, +1

Interview

Investing in MENA+ founders in the diaspora

Apr 30, 2025

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7 min read

Investing in MENA+ founders in the diaspora

The mechanics of how to build a high-performing syndicate, why values alignment is a competitive moat, and the MENA+ diasporic founders you should know.

Jamie Lane, +1

Interview

Rewiring B2B finance in Pakistan and beyond

Apr 24, 2025

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9 min read

Rewiring B2B finance in Pakistan and beyond

What it means to build in a market where volatility isn’t a risk – it’s a cyclical certainty, why going top-down beats direct-to-MSME, and how you build real moats in enterprise fintech — not with UX, but with trust, switching friction, and time.

Jamie Lane, +1

Interview

Apr 18, 2025

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6 min read

Trubuild’s blueprint to build better

Trubuild’s CEO Bisrat Degefa on what makes construction tech such a tough sell, why most tools fail in the field, and what meaningful disruption actually looks like in one of the world’s most traditional industries.

Jamie Lane

Interview

Apr 16, 2025

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8 min read

Building a band-aid for cancer

Seven years, 959 rejections, and a circuitous journey from San Diego to New York to Abu Dhabi – Khatija Ali MD and BioSapien’s mission to deliver chemotherapy locally is as much about persistence as it is about innovation.

Jamie Lane, +1

Interview

Apr 11, 2025

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6 min read

Inside Rabbit’s Saudi Expansion

Rabbit’s CEO Ahmad Yousry on localising dark stores, rejecting discount wars, and why winning quick commerce in MENA is a supply chain challenge — not a marketing one.

Jamie Lane

Interview

Hubpay: Building the financial backbone of MENA and beyond

Apr 9, 2025

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32 min read

Hubpay: Building the financial backbone of MENA and beyond

The long road to fintech infrastructure in MENA, the overlooked power of remittance corridors, why stablecoins are no longer a sideshow – and what it really means to build a business from the trenches of regulatory complexity.

Jamie Lane, +1

Interview

MNT Halan: from ride-hailing to fintech unicorn

Mar 26, 2025

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9 min read

MNT Halan: from ride-hailing to fintech unicorn

CEO Mounir Nakhla on achieving fintech ecosystem lock-in, the company's acquisition and expansion strategy, why tailored risk models beat copy-paste approaches, and the potential path toward becoming a fully-fledged digital bank.

Jamie Lane, +1

Interview

Mar 19, 2025

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6 min read

Rise, fall & reinvention

An honest reflection with Idriss Al Rifai on Fetchr’s hypergrowth, what went wrong, the isolation of being a founder, and the emotional cost of tying self-worth to a company, plus hard-won lessons on hiring, scaling, and the $140 billion SME financing opportunity in MENA.

Jamie Lane

Interview

Tapping into the potential of Palestinian youth

Mar 12, 2025

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7 min read

Tapping into the potential of Palestinian youth

TAP’s transformation from manual job placement to AI-driven talent acceleration, how it's sustaining financial viability without compromising impact, and the realities of scaling a company in the face of relentless adversity.

Jamie Lane, +1

Interview

Mar 5, 2025

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9 min read

Building the iTunes for spare parts

Why the next industrial revolution will be local, breaking ‘pilot purgatory’ in deeptech sales, and the biggest misconceptions about additive manufacturing.

Jamie Lane, +1

Interview

Tipping the scales in favour of restaurants

Feb 19, 2025

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9 min read

Tipping the scales in favour of restaurants

Why AI and embedded finance aren't always the answer, getting pricing strategies right in cost-sensitive markets, and why the biggest cost drivers are in the back-of-house.

Jamie Lane, +1

Interview

Feb 5, 2025

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8 min read

Building agentic AI for Arabic dialects

Why it's so difficult, the benefits of offering LLM flexibility, and how AI is changing the enterprise pricing model.

Jamie Lane, +1

Interview

Jan 29, 2025

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8 min read

Growing vegetables in the Saudi desert

Saudi Arabia’s reliance on food imports for 90% of its fresh produce is a problem. This startup thinks it has the food security solution.

Jamie Lane, +1

Interview

Scaling and exiting MENA's top cloud kitchen

Jan 22, 2025

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9 min read

Scaling and exiting MENA's top cloud kitchen

How an $80M Series B led to a strategic acquisition, the realities of navigating an exit, and starting fresh as a second-time founder.

Jamie Lane, +1