Partner at SparkLabs Saudi Arabia
SparkLabs operates the AIM-X accelerator, a program focused on supporting AI startups in Saudi Arabia as part of the country's broader Artificial Intelligence Mission (AI.M) to enhance its global leadership in AI.
Born and raised in Montenegro. I went to do my undergrads and masters between and US, started my first job in a bank and it was one of the best experiences in my life because I realized what I don't want to do. And I started working in a private equity boutique, and that's where I discovered the love for entrepreneurship because I was working directly with the founders. Realized the importance of building a healthy corporate culture because we were doing this team building retreats, preparing lunch together every day. It was a really wonderful experience.
After 10 years in Italy, Saudi Arabia came across my table. Sounds like a challenge. It was an enigma as a country for me. I decided to pack my suitcases and was responsible to build an investment arm for a portfolio of 25 companies. After three or four months in into my Saudi journey, the whole pandemic started.
Eventually I got in touch with the team from SparkLabs. I really loved what they are doing and we started our Saudi operations in November last year. We are building operations here from scratch and it has been a really wild and interesting journey so far.
SparkLabs is a group of accelerators and VC funds. Everything started in 2013 in Korea. The co founders were inspired by what Y Combinator was doing in the US. We moved to Taiwan to Australia, U. S. A. and now Saudi Arabia. We have more than 15 funds now across the group.
In particular now with the Saudi, we launched the AI fund, part of a Saudi Arabia's artificially intelligence mission. When it comes to the founders and startups, it's very diverse. We have companies that are going from seed stage up to a Series B as part of our accelerator. We have companies that are MVP stage to companies that are doing $10 million in revenue. For the first cohort now, we have 14 companies and the program was launched just last week.
In order to understand Saudi and Middle East, you have to buy a one way ticket to Riyadh and just stay around. There's something called Vision 2030. It's a set of different milestones where Saudi is now diversifying completely from fossil fuels. They are investing in all the aspects of the economy. And tech sector it's really one of those where they are investing significantly, in particular when it comes to AI. There's so much opportunity on the ground, not only getting funded, but also getting business with so many projects, such as the new city they are building. In Saudi Arabia, people have in their DNA to be a businessman. They've been trading for centuries and they really believe a lot in trust and getting to know people. That's why it's important to come here, be on the ground.
All the countries are operating in their own way. When it comes to Saudi, we do require people to be on the ground 50% of the time. Why is that? Because we are very active investors. We don't just provide you with capital. We are really trying to support. In order to understand Saudi market, you have to be here. So in order to help you build a business in Saudi, expanding the GCC and Middle East in general, our requirement is to be here on the ground 50%, but to be honest, the founders, once they come here, they usually stay for much longer. Even after the program is done, people just continue coming.
We are looking to tailor our program according to the startup needs. We are not going to have a product market fit session and then put a $10 million founder in that session. We are really trying to understand where we can add value and then supporting companies go global. One good example is H2O Hospitality. Which we invested in around 10 years ago. We were one of their first investors. Now we are helping them land in the Saudi and expand their business here. A lot of startups that applied for SparkLabs have raised significant capital before. They are not coming into our program for the check, but they are really coming for our network. We have a network of 200 plus advisors and mentors from all different shapes. So that's something that I would say differentiates us significantly from the others.
I feel there's a tendency of putting founders in a certain box. And I do believe different founders, really different personalities that can arrive to same result with a completely different approach. But one thing that I see as a common thread is the people that show up. It's about showing up as a better version of themselves. I read a lot about people just saying, you have to keep pounding your head against the wall. But I'm like, isn't it better to put a helmet or maybe you can use a hammer or you bring a bulldozer to bring that wall down. So I believe it's really a combo of doing things. But then also just stepping aside and seeing, is there something that you can do better and then just continuing doing that? So it's all about, you know, action and reflection on that experience.
Founders are just crazy people. You have to be a bit crazy in order to try to make certain changes, to build something meaningful. Different personalities, people that see the same thing in a very different way, coming from all different parts of the world. It's just amazing to spend time with such people and then learn from them because everybody will have a different story of how they close the client, how they hire the amazing talent, how they fundraised, and they are doing it in a really simple way. Such a different way. And it's really amazing when we all sit together in the same room and then all those stories are being shared. That's really the unique part. It's such a pleasure to be able to work with them every single day.
Our latest fund is a $50 million fund and our primary focus is AI. But when it comes to the industry, we were quite agnostic. So basically, it was all coming down to one side, the founder. We were looking for a great team of co founders. It's an exception when we invest in a solo founder.
It's just from a risk management point of view. To the extreme case, founder gets hit by a bus, there is nobody else to continue that business. At the same time, SparkLabs invested in more than 600 companies that today have a post-money valuation of $44 billion. Those teams execute really much better. Once you have that cohesion among the co founders, you have someone responsible for the business side, you have someone who's responsible for the tech side. And it's very hard to find that in a single individual. Not that we did not invest. There are exceptions, but we do prefer to invest in a team of co founders.
Try to bootstrap as much as possible. Try to bring those users, to bring those revenues. If you just think of the co founders of Airbnb, they were selling the cereals. That had nothing to do with their business model. But doing that, they sent a strong signal to the investor that they know how to sell it. That's where your business starts. Coming to the table with a bit of users, revenues, maybe even some money in the bank account from friends and family that you raised, you are negotiating and discussing in a different way compared to when you just come with an MVP. My suggestion is always try to bootstrap and then delay that the fundraiser as much as possible, because then you can get and negotiate better terms for your startup.
Start building one. Start building relationships. And I'm saying that intentionally and not using the term network. Because when you go to these events, there is a tendency of people to talk with as many people as possible. You can just feel that that person is not there, but they're actually looking with whom they're going to talk next. So what I'm saying about building relationship, it's better to build like relationship with 10 people, rather than a hundred shallow relationships. You should build it with the founders, with VCs and just do it in a really genuine way.
And how do we find them? There are always two routes that one should follow. First one is the cold email. Even though people are saying it's not working, it's really working if done in a right way. A few of the companies we invested in came from a cold outreach, but what's really effective is when you personalize it. Instead of sending a hundred emails, send those 10, 20. Find something to hang on. Separate yourself from the crowd. Find a way to do it. Maybe you send the video. Maybe you send them a handwritten letter.
Second one is creating content. I committed to making a hundred videos in 140 days on LinkedIn. So that's like one video a day, Monday to Friday. Making a one minute video was taking me three to four hours, sometimes even more. But I cannot explain to you guys the messages I received. I never went viral. I never had a wild viral success. But what's happening in the DMs, it's really incredible.
We are collaborating with National Technology Development Program. They have different sort of incentives, depending on where you are in your journey as a startup. So if you are earlier, they have something called MVP lab, where you can be eligible for a grant around 40, 000 USD. If you are a bit later stage startup, they have a program called the relocate, where they're offering incentives from office space to covering the salaries up to a one year.
VC world is such that it attracts the best of the best and worst of the of the worst. Don't bring energy from a bad investor meeting to a new investor meeting. Approach every new conversation as a blank sheet of paper as if that investor is the one that can help you grow your business. That is going to change the trajectory of your startup. You don't need 100 investors on your cap table. You need a selected few. You just need to go through that painful journey, talk with as many as possible. If you didn't like it, just close the chapter and then you are starting a new one.
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