Utopia Aims To Support More Than 50 Ventures in Next Five Years; Eyes Funds From Family Offices

Utopia Capital Management, which aims to support more than 50 pre-seed to Series-A ventures in the next five years with as much as 70% from the Middle East, is eyeing family offices for funds in its efforts to develop unicorns in the region.

"Overall, we will be supporting 50 ventures across Southeast Asia, Middle East. In the Middle East specifically, it is about 35 that we are investing in," Alina Truhina, co-founding partner of Utopia, told Gulf Times in an exclusive interview.

Reasoning for the increased focus on the Middle East, she said the region allowed it to consolidate its model, bring the right type of talent and expertise, and allow integration of the geographies.

"We can also help our portfolio companies from Asia and Africa expand to the Middle East. The region is well positioned as the hub for innovation," she said, adding viable nature, fast changing and favourable nature of the regulatory ecosystem helped it.

Highlighting the availability of capital in this region, she said Qatar is the headquarters for Utopia Capital Management platform, under which come The Studio (AI-native Venture builder) as well as A-typical Ventures, which is backed by the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).

The Studio is working with the first group of entrepreneurs and over the next five years it aims to develop 140 venture concepts and support over 50 Pre-Seed to Series-A ventures.

The Studio will help develop the venture concepts and launch new companies, and A-typical Ventures, working closely with The Studio under the Utopia platform, will invest in them, she said.

A-typical Ventures is its Middle East fund, covering the Middle East, which includes the GCC (Gulf Co-operation Council), the Levant, Turkiye and Pakistan, and it also has a Southeast Asia fund 'The Radical Fund'.

"We are in conversations with several family offices (in Qatar). They are definitely keen. There is definitely a growing interest," she said in reference to bringing in fund managers and the need for corporates to partner more with startups.

On the Studio, which was launched on the sidelines recently concluded Mobile World Congress, she said the venture building engine will co-build with entrepreneurs, new companies, but also work with existing ventures to support them with technology, with AI (artificial intelligence) native technology, as well as go to market, commercialisation, growth, partnerships, product and design, and expansion opportunities.

"We work with entrepreneurs from idea stage to series A stage," she said.

Asked about the areas it was looking at; Truhina said it works along the kind of opportunities that are very relevant to its geographies.

"So the global south is our remit. We have developed PODs (problem-orientated deep dive). We look for entrepreneurs who are domain experts, and we co-build with them within very specific PODs. Then the funds also invest in these companies," according to her.

PODs start with digital infrastructure (maintenance intelligence, neo-clouds, data centre and energy software, along with the core systems behind the energy transition and resource infrastructure); industry experts (deep domain-experts across technical fields such as surgery, chemistry and advanced engineering); and sovereignty (core systems in security, deep technology and government intelligence).

The studio is building from idea to Series A in less than 24 months, she said, adding at present, it is now finalising an investment into a data company.

"We have also invested in a company that is a B2B venture that is a B2B management investment and financial management tool for SMEs (small and medium enterprises) across the global south," Truhina said, adding it is also looking at sectors such as gaming, tokenisation, climate tech and cleantech.

On A-typical Ventures, a new driving force for early-stage venture innovation across the Middle East’s startup ecosystem; she said it has already spoken to more than 150 entrepreneurs in Qatar, but being a regional fund, it is also looking at other geographies such as the GCC, Lebanon, Turkiye and Pakistan. Across the region, it has contacted more than 300 entrepreneurs.