AI investing, particularly through Shorooq VC which focuses on seed-stage. Watch the full video — free, no account needed.
AI investing, particularly through Shorooq VC which focuses on seed-stage startups. Listeners will hear perspectives on topics like global AI innovation, identifying strong founders, and the impact of teams on early stage investing.
That's what I'm looking for. And And I'm looking for the the the right experts to do it. So, the first is domain domain depth. Um the kind of AI companies that we're looking for are in the main ones that can really um dominate and go deep uh in a particular vertical. And uh for that we're looking for founders and management teams that have got the experience the technical know-how um and the obsession to really go deep on a particular industry and sector and within it very deep but slim layers of of challenges and and uh and and uh problem sets. Uh I mean, I can give you some examples. You know, we've invested in in companies like Candid Intelligence. Candid Intelligence is solving for a critical but huge layer within the sort of industrial construction and energy space, which is uh EPCs and the and the bidding process, where tens of millions of dollars are are often lost in in bids. Uh
and they've built a a a verticalized uh AI tool that is able to to help these bids go through on time, uh be far more reliable, uh and far more in line with with regulatory expectations. Um huge market, massive problem, but what many would call boring AI. That's what I'm looking for. And And I'm looking for the the the right experts to do it. So, that's one. Um the second is I'm looking for companies that that that are global from day one. And what I mean by that is market growth naturally has to be sequenced, right? That is what a sober founder does. But I want to be able to see that you have a clear pathway to being a global company, because that's also where my value add comes in. Right? Um I don't want to sit there and be dumb capital on a cap table. I want to be able to add value, and I want to be able to help open up markets and open up opportunity. And that is much more likely to
happen with a management team and a founder that is very serious about expanding into Asia, expanding into the Middle East, expanding into Africa uh and taking advantage of of the fact that AI is quite frankly an AI arms race and and and it's a global one. Um So, that's second. And then And then the third is um you know, something that I think it doesn't get uh mentioned a a lot when it comes to investing in in early stage companies.