Podcast

Oct 27, 2026

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2 min read

Solving the Gulf’s startup exit problem

Startup exits, founder selection and why Shorooq's Shane Shin thinks the follow-on cheque matters more.

Jamie Lane

Saudi Arabia

Oct 20, 2026

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2 min read

How SPICE is shaking up Saudi dining

After exiting ifood.jo and POSRocket, Zeid Husban is back with SPICE, a Saudi dining platform that gives restaurants cash upfront in exchange for dining credit. We get into how the model works, why it offers diners 20% cashback, and what building a third startup has taught him.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Oct 13, 2026

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4 min read

Inside the Gulf’s Venture Debt Boom

Stride's Ishpreet Singh Gandhi on why founders rely too heavily on equity, how venture debt can change the economics of scaling a startup, and what Stride’s experience in India tells us about the Gulf’s emerging private credit market.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Oct 6, 2026

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4 min read

Inside COLABS’ Saudi Expansion

Omar Shah on why COLABS is betting on Saudi, how the economics of coworking actually work, and what it takes to build across the GCC.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Sep 28, 2026

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3 min read

How to Raise a Seed Round in MENA

MilkStraw AI’s Jawad Shreim and Orbii’s Nauman Ali break down how they raised their latest seed rounds, from months of investor cultivation and stacked calendars to creating FOMO, negotiating terms and turning a funding announcement into customer acquisition.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Sep 7, 2026

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5 min read

How Quiqup Rebuilt From Dubai

After more than a decade building Quiqup, Bassel El Koussa opens up about raising $45M, surviving Uber’s arrival, rebuilding from Dubai, cutting revenue by 50% and what the next era of commerce could look like.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Aug 25, 2026

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5 min read

How Bayzat Came Back From Zero Runway

After more than a decade building Bayzat, Talal Bayaa opens up about raising $55M+, hitting zero runway, fixing pricing, the pressure to deliver liquidity and how AI is reshaping the business.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Why the Old MENA Startup Playbook Is Dead

Aug 10, 2026

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6 min read

Why the Old MENA Startup Playbook Is Dead

Rabea Ataya has accumulated more scar tissue than most founders ever will. We sit down with one of MENA’s OG entrepreneurs to talk capital, ownership, staying hungry, building for decades and why the playbook that once made him successful would probably fail today.

Jamie Lane

Jul 13, 2026

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5 min read

Inside the AI services boom

After nearly a decade leading Deliveroo’s Middle East operation, Anis Harb left to help business make AI work at scale. We sit down with the Algebra AI founder, fresh from a $7M raise, to talk managed AI services, leaner teams and the gap between a promising demo and measurable results.

Jamie Lane

Fintech

Jul 5, 2026

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4 min read

Building the AWS for Middle East Fintech

Lean has raised more than $100M to build the region’s fintech infrastructure layer. We sat down with CPO Tewfik Cassis on the eve of the company’s biggest product launch to date, to talk Pay by Bank, open finance, stablecoins, agentic commerce and why Lean’s ambitions now stretch far beyond open banking.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Building AI Agents for a Trillion-Dollar Debt Market

Jun 22, 2026

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5 min read

Building AI Agents for a Trillion-Dollar Debt Market

ClearGrid came out of stealth in 2025 with $10M across pre-Seed and Seed rounds. We sit down with co-founder Mohammad Al-Khalili, to learn more about the AI debt-resolution company quietly rebuilding one of the least glamorous, most avoided corners of finance.

Jamie Lane

Fintech

How Comfi raised $65M to build B2B BNPL for MENA's SMEs

Jun 15, 2026

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4 min read

How Comfi raised $65M to build B2B BNPL for MENA's SMEs

The inside scoop on raising a $65 million pre-Series A from Iliad Partners, Yango, and Shorooq, and how Comfi underwrites a business in hours rather than weeks.

Jamie Lane

Fintech

Speedinvest's Rana Abdel Latif & Deepali Nangia on Raising from QIA, EIB, and Mubadala

Apr 22, 2026

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5 min read

Speedinvest's Rana Abdel Latif & Deepali Nangia on Raising from QIA, EIB, and Mubadala

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.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Apr 13, 2026

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6 min read

Building the backbone of Sovereign AI

Lebanese founder Mahdi Yahya spent eight years building Ori, an AI infrastructure company backed by Wa'ed Ventures that most investors initially didn't understand. Ori has now been acquired by Brookfield Asset Management and merged into Radiant, a vertically integrated AI company combining power, land, capital, and compute to build sovereign and hyperscale infrastructure across Europe, North America, and the Middle East.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Mar 16, 2026

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6 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.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

A rare MENA exit, and the future of SaaS

Mar 10, 2026

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6 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.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Aydi's Hassan Fayed on Building AI for Every Farmer on Earth

Feb 24, 2026

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6 min read

Aydi's Hassan Fayed on Building AI for Every Farmer on Earth

Hassan Fayed grew up on a farm in Egypt. Now he's raised $7.5M from COTU, Nuwa Capital, and Daltex to build an AI agronomist called Orth for the 95% of farms that have never been visited by one.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Building Arabic AI from MENA, Why Most Pilots Fail, and Hiring Only A-Players

Dec 30, 2025

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1 min read

Building Arabic AI from MENA, Why Most Pilots Fail, and Hiring Only A-Players

Nour Al Hassan is the Founder and CEO of Tarjama& and Arabic AI, a UAE-based AI company building Arabic-first language models, enterprise agents, and document intelligence systems for governments and large organisations.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Raising $100M to Build AI From Abu Dhabi, The Future of Work & Why AI Needs Human Supervisors

Dec 22, 2025

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1 min read

Raising $100M to Build AI From Abu Dhabi, The Future of Work & Why AI Needs Human Supervisors

Arya Bolurfrushan is the Founder and CEO of Applied AI, the company behind Opus, a platform enabling enterprises to design AI-native workflows. Earlier this year, the company closed a $55 million Series A led by G42, with Palantir and Bessemer also participating.

Jamie Lane

Contech

From Careem $3.1 exit to disrupting Saudi construction

Dec 15, 2025

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1 min read

From Careem $3.1 exit to disrupting Saudi construction

Ibrahim Manna, who led Careem’s expansion across 11 of its 15 markets, joins the podcast. He is now the Founder and CEO of BRKZ, a Saudi-based construction tech company that has raised over $50 million to tackle inefficiencies in construction procurement.

Jamie Lane

News

GCC Food Security, India’s Venture Depth & Agritech Investing

Dec 8, 2025

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1 min read

GCC Food Security, India’s Venture Depth & Agritech Investing

Mark Kahn, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Omnivore, India’s leading agritech and climate-tech venture capital firm with more than $300M AUM, joins the podcast.

Jamie Lane

News

Oct 15, 2025

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2 min read

VC React Podcast (Episode #54)

This week on VC React, we unpack BECO’s $370M twin funds and what it signals for full-stack venture in MENA, dig into aydi's $7.5M seed to bring AI to agritech, debate the PIF–Silver Lake $55B take-private of EA, and track the fintech migration as Revolut’s CEO relocates to Dubai.

Jamie Lane

News

Sep 22, 2025

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2 min read

VC React Podcast (Episode #52)

This week on VC React, we unpack Tamara’s $1.4B debt facility, debate Hala’s $157M Series B and its Square-style ambitions, and ask if Robinhood’s plan to democratise startup investing is visionary or risky.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Sep 9, 2025

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2 min read

VC React Podcast (Episode #50)

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.

Jamie Lane

Podcast

Sep 1, 2025

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3 min read

VC React Podcast (Episode #49)

This week on VC React, the theme is localisation: we unpack Impact46’s $53M bet on Kammelna and whether Saudi gaming IP can scale globally, dissect Gathern’s $72M Series B to test if domestic tourism can fuel an IPO, stress-test Holo’s $22M mortgage play as it enters Saudi, and debate whether Allam 34B gives Arabic a true edge in the foundation model race.

Jamie Lane