🎙️ Interview

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Mar 26, 2025

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

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Mar 19, 2025

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

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Mar 12, 2025

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

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Mar 05, 2025

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

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Feb 19, 2025

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

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Feb 05, 2025

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

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Jan 29, 2025

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

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Jan 22, 2025

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

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Jan 09, 2025

How MilkStraw AI is redefining cloud optimisation

MilkStraw AI just raised a $600k pre-seed round. We sat down with CEO Jawad Shreim to learn more about the problem they're solving, what makes them different, their business model, and their vision for the future.

Jamie Lane