FWDstart · 2026-01-05 · 57 min
Nafez Dakkak is the Founding Partner of Anara Capital, a $50 million impact fund investing in early-stage startups across learning, climate, and wellbeing in the MENA region. Designed to be intentional and scalable, the fund backs founders solving critical infrastructure challenges across the Levant, GCC and North Africa. Before launching Anara, Nafez was the Founding CEO of the Queen Rania Foundation’s Edraak, the Arab world's largest massive open online course (MOOC) platform, which today reaches over 10 million learners. His transition from operator to investor also includes establishing BLDR, a venture studio focused on the the potential of the learn to earn cycle across MENA. He joins the podcast to discuss why AI tutors will fail the 80% of students who lack motivation , the "Game Boy Principle" of innovating through constraints rather than shiny new tech , why Arabic literacy is fundamentally broken by diglossia , and the critical difference between a founder who is passionate versus one who is truly obsessed. - Timestamps: 00:03:00 - Is MENA EdTech Still a Sleeping Giant?
Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.
Bayt’s Rabea Ataya on 26 Years of Building and Why the Old MENA Startup Playbook No Longer Works86 / 100
ClearGrid's Mohammad Al-Khalili on Building AI for a Trillion-Dollar Debt Market85 / 100
Comfi's Sanjar Samiev and Denis Gavrilin on Raising $65M and Building B2B BNPL for MENA's SMEs88 / 100
Rana Abdel Latif & Deepali Nangia (Speedinvest) on Raising from QIA, EIB, and Mubadala, Why Fintechs Are the New Incumbents, and What Catalytic LPs Actually Do86 / 100
Mahdi Yahya (Ori / Radiant) on Getting Acquired by Brookfield, Building the Backbone of Sovereign AI, and Why Intelligence Is Infrastructure86 / 100
