- July 12, 2021
EPISODE #
Noor Sweid on Venture Capital and Startups Exits in MENA
About this episode
Noor Sweid has spent two decades working in finance and has an outstanding track record in building, scaling and exiting businesses including her own Startup Zen Yoga and leading on the listing of her family business DEPA on the NASDAQ Dubai.
Her passion for helping and coaching entrepreneurs has led her to found Global Ventures, a Venture Capital firm with a vision to become a top tier global investment firm.
In this episode we discuss Global Ventures’ recent exit from Mumzworld, a leading mum and baby e-commerce startup that Noor had backed as an angel from its early days and from Kitopi, a cloud kitchen startup that has recently secured the region’s largest ever funding round of US$415M, led by Softbank’s Vision Fund.
We also discuss venture capital dynamics, and return expectations for the region. We wrap up the discussion by touching on Noor’s personal journey and what motivates her to keep coaching and investing in founders from the Middle East and Africa region, a 1.5B consumer market.
Table of Contents:
00:00 | Loulou’s introduction
00:42 | An overview of the Venture Capital (VC) landscape in MENA
07:47 | Mumzworld’s exit from an investor’s standpoint
13:49 | Kitopi’s $415M fundraising round and Global Venture’s exit
17:49 | VC fund returns
19:45 | Exit opportunities for MENA companies (IPOs, SPACs, M&A)
22:29 | Noor’s journey into venture capital and the impact she’s looking to create
28:17 | Getting more women into entrepreneurship
32:07 | Advice to people wanting to get into VC and to entrepreneurs
35:00 | 5 questions, quick answers
37:13 | Get in touch with Loulou
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To reach out to Noor you can ping her on LinkedIn or reach out to her team on the Global Ventures website.
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listen to the episode
guest profile
Noor Sweid
Noor is passionate about enabling disruptive technology companies and their emerging market founders to solve real problems while changing the world with measurable impact. Noor is a founder, investor, and operator. Identified by Forbes magazine as one of the “World’s Top 50 Women in Tech”, Noor’s previous roles include CIO at The Dubai Future Foundation, and founder of ZenYoga studio chain (acquired by Cedarbridge). Furthermore, Noor was the first Arab woman to scale, IPO and operate a public company in the MENA region, listing Depa on the NASDAQ Dubai and the London Stock Exchange (DEPA:DU) for US$1.1. billion in April 2008.
In addition to board roles on Global Ventures’ portfolio companies, Noor is Chairperson of the Middle East Venture Capital Association and Director for MIT Sloan and TechWadi. Noor is also the independent Chairperson of the board for Clue Health.
Noor holds a bachelors’ degrees in Finance and Economics from Boston College, an MBA from MIT Sloan, and began her career as a Biotechnology and pharmaceutical strategy consultant in the US. She is a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Finance Leaders Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, and is recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.