Our Companies

Faisal Toukan, of Jordanian-Palestinian heritage, is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ziina, the UAE’s leading financial platform empowering individuals and businesses to pay and get paid instantly. Under Faisal’s leadership, Ziina has grown rapidly, processing over 800 million dirhams annually with a remarkable 10x year-on-year growth, establishing itself as a key player in the region’s digital finance sector.

In 2020, Faisal and Ziina’s founding team set out to create a faster, more seamless way to move money across the region, bringing empowerment and ease to both businesses and individuals. Ziina’s mission is clear: to bring financial freedom to every person in the Middle East—because access isn’t a privilege, it’s a right.

After joining Y Combinator in 2021 and securing a $22 million Series A in 2024 led by Altos Ventures, Ziina earned the UAE Central Bank’s prestigious SVF license, setting the stage for further expansion across the region.

Previously, Faisal co-founded Dunya Labs, a blockchain startup, and began his career at Oracle.

Koray Gültekin Bahar, Co-Founder and CEO Figopara, began his entrepreneurial journey with his father, an energy systems entrepreneur while studying at Eastern Mediterranean University in projects related to mobile tech. and web tools.  After graduating, worked as a software developer at FIT Solutions and founded his first start-up, Dotto.

He then focused on a new venture,  Foriba, a software company working on regulation technologies. The sale of Foriba was heralded one of the most important exits of recent times. After the sale of Foriba, he directed Sovos’ Middle East & Asia Strategy in his role as EMEA Strategy Vice President.

He left Sovos Foriba at the end of January 2020 and focused on his previous venture, Figopara, a platform that helps companies manage their cash flow and working capital. Continuing to make angel investments to contribute to the Turkish entrepreneurship ecosystem at the same time.

Koray, an Endeavor Entrepreneur, also serves on the Endeavor Turkey board of directors.

Where fashion, technology, and sustainability intersect, you will find venture-backed VitroLabs and its Founder & CEO, Ingvar Helgason. Originally from Reykjavik, Iceland, Ingvar’s first venture, Oswald Helgason, was a fashion brand that he co-founded in 2006 and scaled to distribution in 23 countries worldwide. Being drawn to the technology side of the fashion industry, he went on to co-found WOAH, a cloud ERP platform for apparel companies, helping 500+ brands and manufacturers speed up processes, reduce waste, and improve profitability. WOAH was sold in 2018. Ingvar’s commitment to sustainability and belief that biotech companies have the opportunity to lead the way in changing how companies produce materials and build supply chains is the foundation upon which VitroLabs’ mission stemmed. The company is supported by investors including Kering, Leonardo DiCaprio, Khosla Ventures, and Agronomics; and has received recognition in top-tier press outlets including Vogue Business, Vogue Italia, BBC, The Business of Fashion, Bloomberg News, and Forbes.

Sir Shankar Balasubramanian FRS FMedSci is Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and is recognized for his contributions in the field of nucleic acids.  He is scientific founder of Solexa and Cambridge Epigenetix.  Cambridge Epigenetix develops ground-breaking multi-omic tools to simultaneously detect genetic and epigenetic information from nucleic acids.

Diego Miralles is a veteran pharmaceutical and biotech leader who joined Flagship Pioneering in 2020, as CEO-Partner and CEO of Laronde.

Previously an Assistant Professor at Duke University Medical Center, where he practiced as an HIV physician and conducted basic research in T-cell development. He has an MD from Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, conducted his residency at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, and his fellowship in Infectious Diseases at New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center.

Christofer Mowry joined General Fusion as its Chief Executive Officer in 2017, bringing global energy industry leadership to the company during the important transition from lab-scale research to the pilot plant demonstration of its technology. With more than 30 years of experience in the global energy and infrastructure sectors, Chris has led an exceptional portfolio of businesses, including those in the power, oil and gas, energy management, automation and process industries.

Bob Mumgaard is Co-Founder and CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS).  He has a Master in Nuclear Science & Engineering and a PhD in Applied Plasma Physics, both from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2015, cofounding CFS in early 2018 – a spinout from MIT’s Plasma Science & Fusion Center.  CFS is developing the fastest path to commercial fusion energy combining proven science with revolutionary magnet technology.  This new source of clean energy has the potential to meet our growing energy demands and combat climate change.

Hosam Arab is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of tabby, a UAE-based fintech start-up and the region’s first and leading ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ consumer solution.

Tabby makes shopping more rewarding by empowering consumers across the UAE and Saudi Arabia with the flexibility and freedom to get what they want and to pay for their online and in-store purchases either in a deferred single payment or in multiple installments.

Mohamed Mossaad and Enas Siam, Co-founders and CEO/COO respectively of Egyptian ecommerce logistics start-up Flextock.

They’re on a mission to enable all merchants across the Middle East – regardless of their size – to efficiently scale their brands through simple, tech-enabled logistics management solutions.

Joseph Dallago is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Rain, a Bahrain-based licensed cryptocurrency digital trading platform and custodian, trusted by thousands of customers in over 50 countries.

Rain’s mission is to bring cryptocurrency to the Middle East through becoming licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain and building institutional-grade infrastructure to accept local currencies in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman.

JoeBen Bevirt is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of JOBY Aviation and has led the team since its inception, more than a decade ago.

He has dedicated his life to driving radical innovation in electric propulsion and robotics. In 1999, JoeBen co-founded Velocity11 to develop high-performance robotic laboratory systems, which was acquired by Agilent Technologies.

In 2005, he founded JOBY Inc., a company that develops useful and delightful consumer products including the popular Gorillapod flexible camera tripod.

Hisham Al-Falih is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lean Technologies, a Saudi Arabian start-up aiming to build the infrastructure for fintech in the Middle East.

Lean makes it easy for developers to connect to their users’ bank accounts, so they can focus on the true value they want to give to their customers – making sure that the connection to the bank is useful, reliable and above all, secure.

Dr Fabrice Chouraqui PhD is Chief Executive Officer of Cellarity and CEO-Partner Flagship Pioneering. An accomplished and experienced global pharmaceutical executive with a passion for driving the progress of medical sciences, Fabrice led the launch of breakthrough therapies in areas from oncology and immunology, to neuroscience and cardiovascular fields.

Cellarity’s technologies, targeting and changing cell behavior itself, create a ‘cell-centric’ approach that effectively shifts the drug-development paradigm and enables Cellarity to pioneer a whole new generation of medicines.

RJ Scaringe founded RIVIAN in 2009, and established RIVIAN’s innovative product and technology platform.

Experienced in analyzing highly complex systems, combining deep analytical capabilities with a system-based development methodology he earned his MSc and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he was a member of the research team in the Sloan Automotive Laboratory.

In leading RIVIAN, he works to maintain a highly collaborative environment and his hands-on approach drives innovative thinking into all aspects of the business and Company culture.

Dr. Simba Gill, Ph.D. is President, Chief Executive Officer of Evelo Biosciences, – part of a new generation of biotech companies creating therapies that harness the central role of gut microbiome.  This new understanding has enabled Evelo to rapidly produce a series of product candidates for a range of inflammatory diseases, including the treatment of COVID-19 and many cancers. Clinical studies are ongoing.

Simba is also passionate about the intersection between science and society, creating new therapeutics to help meet unmet medical needs for the largest number of people globally. An approach to health inclusivity that is completely aligned to the ambition of Abdul Latif Jameel Health.