Founder Chronicles. 2026

The Obsession
Behind the City.

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

Dubai of Tomorrow
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Fintech

The Jordanian Engineer Who Built MENA's Compliance Layer Before Anyone Asked For It

June 2, 2026
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Proptech

The Six-Time Founder Who Claimed the Gap Between Hotels and Leases

May 19, 2026
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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
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Fintech

The Founder Who Put the Digital Dollar on Bitcoin's Rails

March 21, 2026
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Climate

The Founder Betting $17 Million That Refurbished Beats New

March 17, 2026
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AI

Alexander Epure Is Replacing the Hiring Stack With a Single AI

March 16, 2026
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Mobility

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

March 16, 2026
Featured · Fintech

The Jordanian Engineer Who Built MENA's Compliance Layer Before Anyone Asked For It

Ola Doudin launched BitOasis from Dubai in 2015 when no Gulf regulator had a framework for digital assets, and spent a decade building the compliance infrastructure anyway.

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Chronicle

AI.

The Goldman Banker Who Taught Machines to Read the Fine Print

Arya Bolurfrushan left Wall Street, took an oil company public in Oslo, then moved to Abu Dhabi to build the AI platform that automates the most compliance-heavy industries on earth.

Proptech.

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

Michael Lahyani left a consulting career in Geneva because he saw something nobody in Dubai's property market wanted to admit: the entire industry was flying blind.

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.

The Founder Who Put the Digital Dollar on Bitcoin's Rails

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.

The Founder Betting $17 Million That Refurbished Beats New

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.

The Operator Who Made the Customer the Address

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.

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