VC React E50 MENA: Qatar Backs Anthropic, Munify's Neobank for Diaspora, Intella's Digital Human
VC React Podcast:
Every week, we bring you insights and reactions from top VCs, LPs, and Angel Investors, reacting to the latest news on MENA startups, funds, and investment rounds.
Hosts:
Ahmad Takatkah, VCpreneur.
Sign up to VCpreneur Newsletter on https://www.vcpreneur.com/Jamie Lane, FWDstart.
Sign up to FWDstart Newsletter on https://www.fwdstart.me/
Available on:
Youtube: VC React Podcast
Spotify: VC React Podcast
Apple: VC React Podcast
Guests:
1. Dina El-Shenoufy, Co-Founder and General Partner @ F6 Ventures, and a new Kauffman Fellow.
- LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dinaelshenoufy/
- VC Firm Website: https://f6.vc/
2. Husameddin AlMadani, General Partner @ the newly launched 2Pi Ventures, after a decade of angel investing.
- LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/husameedinalmadani/
- VC Firm Website: https://2pi.vc/
This Week On The VC React Podcast:
News of the week brought to you by FWDstart:
Qatar joined Anthropic’s $13B dollar round — yes!! $13B — at a hundred and eighty three billion dollar valuation. Is Qatar investing for returns? influence? or maybe for future partnerships in their local ecosystem?
With huge valuations, how do we price AI companies? Is this driven by actual performance, revenues, distribution, compute power — or just pure narrative and access?
Meanwhile — there are over 10 million Egyptians living abroad — and remittances to Egypt topped $30 billion dollars last year. With a $3M dollar seed round, and backed by YC, Munify is building a neobank for Egyptians abroad. Can they win before Wise, or even Revolut decide to care? And what’s their B2B angle?
And finally, have you seen Ziila?! Intella dropped a full Arabic digital human — not just voice, but video, face, dialect — the whole thing.
Also, what happened to Siri and Alexa? And why didn't OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google Gemini give us a face with a name?!
While everyone’s chasing LLMs, Intella is quietly building speech infrastructure — tailored specifically for Arabic dialects. How are they pulling this off… and why are so many others still trying, but no one won that race yet?!
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