Founder Chronicles. 2026

The Obsession
Behind the City.

Founders, funders, and operators building MENA from Dubai. One profile every Tuesday.

Dubai of Tomorrow
C
Fintech

The Delivery Founder Who Sold to Amazon and Stayed to Fix the Invoice

May 12, 2026
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AI

The Goldman Banker Who Taught Machines to Read the Fine Print

March 27, 2026
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Proptech

The Swiss Outsider Who Built the Gulf's Real Estate Operating System

March 26, 2026
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Proptech

The Man Who Became Dubai's Mortgage

March 25, 2026
C
Fintech

Chris Hutchinson Wants Your Dollars to Move Like Your Messages.

March 21, 2026
H
Climate

Hamza Iraqui Is Betting $17 Million That You'll Never Buy a New Phone Again

March 17, 2026
A
AI

Alexander Epure Is Replacing the Hiring Stack With a Single AI

March 16, 2026
M
Mobility

Mudassir Sheikha Built a $3 Billion Super App for a Region the World Forgot to Map

March 16, 2026
I
Logistics

Idriss Al Rifai Solved the Middle East's Oldest Logistics Problem With the Phone in Your Pocket

March 15, 2026
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Healthtech

Raouf Khalil Built America's Largest Home Healthcare Network. Then He Did It Again in Dubai.

March 15, 2026
Featured · Fintech

The Delivery Founder Who Sold to Amazon and Stayed to Fix the Invoice

After co-building Wing.ae and selling it to Amazon's Souq in 2017, Sanjar Samiev had one unresolved question: why did every supplier in that network spend months waiting to collect what they were already owed.

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Chronicle

Proptech.

The Man Who Became Dubai's Mortgage

Jad Antoun didn't set out to fix real estate. He set out to fix the moment everyone almost walks away from it. The mortgage.

Fintech.

Chris Hutchinson Wants Your Dollars to Move Like Your Messages.

Utexo raised $7.5M to put USDT on Bitcoin. Instantly, privately, for near-zero cost. Tether led the round. That's the whole signal.

Climate.

Hamza Iraqui Is Betting $17 Million That You'll Never Buy a New Phone Again

Revibe just closed a $17M round led by Partech to become the most trusted refurbished electronics marketplace in MENA and Africa. Because the real barrier was never price. It was trust.

AI.

Alexander Epure Is Replacing the Hiring Stack With a Single AI

Dubai-based Qureos just raised $5 million to prove that AI can compress enterprise hiring from months to six days. Alexander Epure built the platform that 1,000+ organizations are already using to find talent faster.

Mobility.

Mudassir Sheikha Built a $3 Billion Super App for a Region the World Forgot to Map

Careem started as a corporate car service in Dubai. It ended as the most important technology acquisition in MENA history. Because Sheikha refused to stop at the obvious answer.

Logistics.

Idriss Al Rifai Solved the Middle East's Oldest Logistics Problem With the Phone in Your Pocket

Fetchr raised $41M to crack the last-mile delivery puzzle across a region where most people don't have a street address. By making the customer the address.

Healthtech.

Raouf Khalil Built America's Largest Home Healthcare Network. Then He Did It Again in Dubai.

After selling his California home health empire to Option Care, Raouf Khalil landed in Dubai in 2011 with one conviction: the GCC needed doctors delivered, not just prescribed. TruDoc just raised $15M from the Al Nahyan family to prove he was right.

Finance.

Mark Chahwan Is Making the MENA Middle Class Rich. One Automated Portfolio at a Time

Sarwa raised $25M to become the region's first regulated robo-advisor, proving that the biggest barrier to wealth-building in the Arab world was never money. It was access.

Proptech.

Rami Tabbara Made Dubai Real Estate a $136 Bet

Stake just raised a $31 million Series B to prove that real estate investing doesn't require wealth. Two million people from 211 countries already agree.

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