Members of the KBW Ventures senior leadership team took part in a Startup Clinic staged by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Innovation Fund (MBRIF). The event, held on October 9, 2024, was structured to encourage audience engagement with a rapid-fire discussion and question and answer segment.
Building on Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed’s recent participation as a judge and keynote speaker for MBRIF’s recent demo day in May 2024, KBW Ventures Chiefs of Communications and Investments spoke to the startups for a two hour bespoke workshop at the Dubai Future Foundation.
Chief Communications Officer, Fida Chaaban, discussed some of the common misconceptions that startups have about communications, and elaborated on how to maximize impact and minimize unnecessary burn of resources and audience fatigue.
Chaaban outlined that overcommunicating is often as perilous as under communicating, and cautioned that along with opportunity cost, bad communications or broken lines of communication can have measurable up-front cost, such as sales.
Chief of Investments, Ekta Tolani, delivered a thorough overview of how KBW Ventures assesses potential portfolio companies through a multi-pane lens internally referred to as the “5P Framework.” Tolani gave real-world examples of some of the companies that KBW Ventures had recently invested in, together with a brief on Prince Khaled’s investment history and patterns of success with emerging technologies.
Tolani stressed the need for founders to fill skill gaps by choosing core team members wisely, selecting advisors strategically who can act as partners, and have a good understanding of an investor’s portfolio and recent commitments ahead of approaching them with a pitch.
The MBRIF Startup Clinic was open to the Fund’s current and past cohorts, and welcomed audience members at Jumeirah Emirates Towers alongside a livestream for entrepreneurs currently outside of the UAE.
