There is a particular kind of opportunity that exists at the intersection of mature capital markets and high-growth operating environments. London and the Gulf represent one of the most interesting versions of that intersection in the world right now.
The United Kingdom provides access to institutional investors, sophisticated governance frameworks, international legal infrastructure, and a talent base that takes technology seriously. The Gulf — particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE — has government-backed transformation programmes of a scale and ambition that are genuinely unusual. Vision 2030 in Saudi Arabia alone represents one of the largest deliberate economic restructuring exercises in modern history. The capital available, the appetite for technology-driven solutions, and the speed at which decisions get made are all significantly different from mature Western markets.
The gap between these two environments is not usually a technology gap or a capital gap. It is a translation gap. Institutional investors in London often do not have the operating confidence or the relationships to deploy into the Gulf efficiently. And founders and operators building in the Gulf often lack the narrative discipline and governance credibility to access the kind of capital that would help them scale.
Having operated substantively on both sides — running businesses in Egypt, working with capital in London, building in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, navigating the institutional expectations of both environments — I have a direct view of where that translation gap sits and how it gets closed. That is not a common vantage point. And in a world where capital and high-growth markets are increasingly trying to find each other, it is a genuinely useful one.