Startup Funding: Tarik Sultan Partner, Head of MENA, Builders VC Tarik Sultan Partner, Head of MENA, Builders VC, on fundraising strategies and long-term investor engagement.

This article is part of Startup Funding - Investor Insights Every Entrepreneur Needs by Entrepreneur Middle East, a series where the MENA region's leading venture capitalists share practical advice to help founders navigate the challenges of building and scaling a startup.

Tarik Sultan Partner, Head of MENA, Builders VC, on fundraising strategies and long-term investor engagement.

What differentiates the startups that continue to attract capital in Qatar? What unique insights about the venture capital sector in Qatar can you share with us?

During a recent panel hosted by the QVenture Capital Association, where Builders VC is a founding member, I spoke about why Qatar has emerged as one of the most purpose-driven innovation landscapes in the world. Financial returns matter, but they are not the sole metric of success. Qatar evaluates opportunities through a broader lens that includes national relevance, societal impact, and long-horizon value creation. One of my favorite reminders for founders is: "Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good." Few markets embody that philosophy as clearly as Qatar.

Startups that thrive here are the ones that understand the country's priorities and how their work contributes to them. Qatar has been explicit about its ambitions through its National Vision 2030 and its successive National Development Strategies, including NDS3. Founders who align with those objectives, and who can articulate how their technology advances them in measurable ways, are the ones who continue to secure meaningful investment and durable partnerships.

Where do you see real, defensible value being created in Qatar / GCC versus hype?

One of Qatar's most underestimated strengths is its connectivity—not only within the GCC, but across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. That reach is reinforced by an ecosystem intentionally engineered to create structural value at every stage of the innovation cycle. At the venture level, initiatives such as QIA's Fund of Funds attract global firms like Builders VC into the market. At the startup level, institutions such as QDB and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) link founders with industry partners in ways that translate into real pilots and commercial pathways.

For early-stage companies, nothing matters more than customer traction and credible market adoption. Qatar has deliberately built an environment where startups can validate their technology with real stakeholders who can move from interest to implementation. That is where defensible value is created—not through hype, but through structured, strategic access to the market. When a startup can demonstrate relevance and adoption in Qatar, it becomes significantly more competitive both regionally and globally.

After spending the past year deeply engaged in the market, what stands out most is the breadth of resources Qatar brings to innovators. It is not just capital; it is world-class research institutions, ambitious national strategies, and a level of commitment to innovation that remains uncommon globally. We see this firsthand through Builders VC's work with organizations such as Sidra Medicine and the Qatar Research, Development and Innovation Council (QRDI), where several of our portfolio companies are already exploring pilots and R&D partnerships.

This is the deeper layer of value creation: a market intentionally designed to support innovation from early validation through long-term scale. Qatar enables companies to build, test, and refine solutions in an environment built for impact—positioning them not only to compete, but to lead on the global stage.

Can you share a personal anecdote, either a pitch that truly impressed you, or one that missed the mark, and why?

We back companies that have moved beyond early experimentation and are beginning to scale in a tangible, measurable way. At that stage, we look for signals that the underlying business is both durable and repeatable. One of the strongest indicators is whether teams truly understand the economics behind their growth—not just the headline metrics, but the operational and financial drivers that show the business improves as it scales.

A recent example comes from Native Microbials, one of our portfolio companies operating at the intersection of agriculture and sustainability. During a visit to several dairy farms in the region, I saw firsthand how they deliver value in the field. What impressed me was not only the depth of the science—supported by hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D and years of validated data—but the clarity of the value proposition.

They demonstrated operational simplicity: no behavioral change, no workflow disruption, and no new equipment requirements. Their solution integrates directly into existing feed routines. And they demonstrated economic clarity: invest a defined amount and generate a predictable, data-backed multiple in dairy output at the farm level.

That combination is what separates truly compelling companies from the average pitch. When the science, the economics, and the real-world outcomes all align, the value becomes self-evident—to investors, to customers, and to the broader ecosystem that is deciding where to place its bets.

Beyond capital, how do you measure your impact as an investor—in shaping founder mindsets, governance, and long-term growth?

Beyond capital, the real impact an investor can have is in helping founders work through the hard problems—the ones that determine whether a company endures or disappears. At Builders VC, our value-add is not theoretical. We work directly with founders and their customers to understand the pain points that matter and to design solutions that can scale in complex, real-world environments.

Building an enduring company requires discipline, resilience, and a willingness to take on work that others avoid. My role as an investor is to help founders develop that mindset—not through motivational speeches, but by engaging alongside them.

One of the clearest ways we measure our impact is by whether we expand a founder's access to opportunities they could not unlock alone: customers, partners, regulators, talent, and markets. For example, although Builders VC has been based in Doha for less than nine months, we have already brought more than a dozen portfolio companies to the country and facilitated over 200 meetings to help them validate demand, build relationships, and explore commercial and R&D pathways.

This kind of engagement is what shapes founder judgment, governance discipline, and long-term growth—not by telling founders what to do, but by helping them see what is possible and supporting them in doing the hard things well.

For founders pitching in 2026, what are the biggest red flags you're seeing—and the traits you wish more entrepreneurs would show?

Across any market cycle, one of the most important qualities a founder can demonstrate is a balance I describe as "strong convictions, but coachable." It is a variation on the idea of "strong convictions, loosely held," and it captures what the best founders do consistently: they absorb input from investors, customers, their teams, and the market; they synthesize that information; and then they make decisions with clarity and conviction. At the same time, they are willing to adjust course when the facts change. Conviction, in this sense, is not the same as stubbornness.

In healthy startup ecosystems, failure happens. A prior failure is not, in itself, a red flag. What matters is whether the founder has done the work to understand it. A real concern emerges when founders have not reflected on what went wrong, what they would do differently, and how those lessons inform their choices today. The founders who endure are the ones who strike that balance: strong convictions, but coachable.

Looking specifically at 2025–2026, a more recent red flag is the wave of "AI-as-a-Service" pitches: thin AI wrappers presented as if the interface alone creates a moat. AI can certainly accelerate customer acquisition and product development, but an interface by itself is rarely a defensible business. Unless companies pair AI with genuine network effects, proprietary data, or deeply differentiated workflows, their products are easy to replicate and hard to protect.

Sectors to watch—what sectors are standing out to you now?

It would be a mistake to overlook how powerful genuine AI innovation is right now. Much as social media reshaped marketing in the 2010s, AI is reshaping business in the 2020s. It cuts across sectors, functions, and operating models. Qatar's forward-looking posture reflects this reality, including the launch of QAI, designed to strengthen national digital infrastructure and position the country as a regional hub for advanced AI development.

At Builders VC, we back founders solving complex problems in healthcare, agriculture and climate tech, biotech, and industrials. These sectors often rely on legacy, low-tech processes, and AI can transform them with relatively little friction, moving them from slow, manual workflows to capabilities that would have sounded like science fiction a few years ago.

One example is our portfolio company Amplifier Health. They have developed a foundational model that analyzes the acoustics of the human voice to extract rich biomarker data. With just a few seconds of speech, they can detect wellness indicators such as fatigue and stress, as well as biomarkers associated with conditions like Parkinson's disease, tuberculosis, and even pregnancy. This is the kind of deep-tech innovation that excites us: AI applied to historically difficult, globally relevant challenges.

The most compelling sectors today are those where AI is not the product, but the enabler. Precision health, sustainable agriculture, industrial automation, climate technologies, and advanced diagnostics all fit that profile. These are categories where the combination of deep science and AI-driven acceleration can create defensible, large-scale impact.

Founders should also remember that very few ideas are truly original. What separates those who win is execution: the ability to build a product, team, and strategy that compound over time, create a defensible advantage, and position the company for durable, long-term success.

Related: Startup Funding: Sietse van de Kerkhof, Investment Manager, STV Saudi