The Obsession
Behind the City.
Founders, funders, and operators building MENA from Dubai. One profile every Tuesday.
The Goldman Banker Who Taught Machines to Read the Fine Print
March 27, 2026
The Swiss Outsider Who Built the Gulf's Real Estate Operating System
March 26, 2026
The Man Who Became Dubai's Mortgage
March 25, 2026
Chris Hutchinson Wants Your Dollars to Move Like Your Messages.
March 21, 2026
Hamza Iraqui Is Betting $17 Million That You'll Never Buy a New Phone Again
March 17, 2026
Alexander Epure Is Replacing the Hiring Stack With a Single AI
March 16, 2026
Mudassir Sheikha Built a $3 Billion Super App for a Region the World Forgot to Map
March 16, 2026
Idriss Al Rifai Solved the Middle East's Oldest Logistics Problem With the Phone in Your Pocket
March 15, 2026
Raouf Khalil Built America's Largest Home Healthcare Network. Then He Did It Again in Dubai.
March 15, 2026
Mark Chahwan Is Making the MENA Middle Class Rich. One Automated Portfolio at a Time
March 13, 2026The 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.
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Chronicle
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Amer Yasso Turned the UAE's HR Bureaucracy Into a Product. And Businesses Can't Stop Buying It
Bayzat built the region's first all-in-one HR, payroll, and insurance platform because every company in the UAE was spending hours on admin that should take minutes.
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