Lux Capital's Deena Shakir on first GCC investment: a $30M Series A in applied AI startup 1001

and we'll talk soon back on soon. Thank you very much. Cheers, John.

Let me tell you about the New York Stock Exchange. Want to change the world? Raise capital at the New York Stock Exchange. Just do it. Stop making excuses and do it. Our next guest is Dena Shakir from Lux Capital. She's a partner there. She's been on the show before and we're very excited to have Dena back on the show. How are you doing?

Hey guys, great to see you.

Great to see you too. Welcome back. Uh give us the latest on the portfolio investments also. I mean I want to zoom out at some point and just uh take your temperature on how things are going in the private markets and the AI boom. But first give us the latest and greatest.

Absolutely. Well, we've got a lot of exciting stuff going on all the time and there's definitely no summer lull as you know and are reporting on anywhere in Venture and certainly not here at Lux.

Um, we had a big

even by August. August I think we could be seeing a bit of a lull.

I feel like it's always like it it feels crazy and then you get to mid August and it's like okay

maybe that's wishful thinking on your part guys. I don't know if you're going to be taking that August vacation. This it's definitely lots of excitement, lots of activity. Our partner meetings are filled with deal pitches and we've got announcements coming up

uh you know nearly every day here. So there's a lot going on.

That's great.

Especially in the world of AI.

Yes. What's the latest in the world of AI? What's the

Well, I'm excited to talk to talk about one of our newest investments that we uh just announced last week. It's actually our very first investment in the GCC uh a company called 101. Um we had the chance to invest really early. We were there when it was just Bal in an idea and the seed round have been following it closely uh and preempted the series A a $30 million round um in partnership with early investors including GC and CIV and SABL actually joined us as well. Um super excited about the opportunity for applied AI in the Gulf.

Yeah. What does uh what is the status quo of of software in the critical infrastructure space? Like you hear about these massive machines from Seammens and I imagine that there's some maybe web-based dashboard for something or other but are those companies asleep at the wheel? Is there just so much opportunity that you can do a yes and solution where it's not a rip and replace but it's an additive functionality for critical infrastructure uh managers and companies like what is the shape of the job to be done?

Yeah, I mean there's a real green field opportunity especially in the region. It's going to come down to the application layer to deployment. This is, you know, not a novel concept. There's a lot of discussion right now about the distribution advantage. You know, we're sort of moving beyond the mode of models into actually who can deploy on the ground with partners. And what's exciting about the GCC is of course we think about them a lot as investors, right? There's a lot of money coming in from the UAE, from Saudi, from Qatar, and elsewhere into these companies. But the idea of a homegrown company that is built for the GCC, which is a true global hub, clearly not only on the investing side, but actually on the customer side where there's an opportunity for, you know, really fast, massive, multi00, billion dollar types of deployments um at scale. Something that you really don't see anywhere else in the world.

Yeah. Really quickly, we got to we got to hit the gong. It came in the middle of an answer, so I didn't get a chance to do it, but Jordan, please.

Yeah. What What is What is deal flow like coming out of coming out of the Gulf? Like I I can't imagine it it's more than like 10% of the opportunities you're seeing maybe like 5%, but how are you evaluating those opportunities?

And do you go there or do they come here? How does that work?

Yeah. Do they comes here, but then they're entrepreneurs? Do they come and do a road show here or you know what is It it's it's still really early days. Um there of course have been companies innovating in Dubai and and um and all over the Gulf for quite some time. This is our first investment in you know 25 years. That's a company headquartered there. Certainly we have a lot of companies that are doing business there or companies that have gotten investment from the region. Um but it's still early days. What's really exciting about this company uh among many other things is the founder and the founding team and this thesis that they have around the diaspora. So how can they catalyze some of the best and brightest entrepreneurs from the region who have worked in the US you know Bilal the founder and CEO was born in Jordan studied computer science at Yale uh worked for many years at scale helped to grow their business in the region had the opportunity to do anything and saw that there was this incredibly unique opportunity to build a homegrown sovereign AI company focused on the GCC. when we invested it was just him in an idea and he has attracted some of the best and brightest. It has been such a joy just to watch the incredible talent that he's amassed around him and that was one of the early signals for us to really double down.

What are the key stops on the calendar in the Gulf these days? If you're in America, you might go to liquidity by the all-in team. You might go to SF Tech Week, Milin Sun Valley. Uh what are the key stops if you're investing or doing business in the Gulf?

Well, the big one especially in the last few years has been FII which take takes place in the fall in Saudi in Riyad. It's known as Davos in the desert to some.

Um so that's that's a big one and many people do a trip around that where you know Milkin does a big uh summit as well in um in Abu Dhabi. Um and you know a lot of folks are doing global conferences and actually creating their own versions in the Gulf because there is a lot of opportunity again not just on the on the investing side but actually now increasingly on the talent side and we're excited to be at the forefront of that.

Yeah. Web summit's out there too but tough web

because AI killed the web and the web doesn't even really exist anymore but they need to rename it. They should just rename AI Summit. There you go.

Well then AI will be out of date. We're going to have to just be constantly changing the name names for all of these

potentially. Potentially. Uh, how are how are Gulf based companies pricing relative to San Francisco based companies?

Honestly, I think the global market for these companies for the absolute top tier of talent is pretty consistent and it really just comes down to that team. It's not about being golf based. There's no discount for a founder like uh like Bal when you see that talent for a generational company. um you know it it the prices are going to look like they do for gener generational companies anywhere in the world. Uh he's headquartered between London and Dubai you know has attracted talent from all over the world including many many folks actually you know from from Silicon Valley as well. Um so no discount there but

Deep Mind is a feeder in London like

Deep Mind is a feeder there's really no limit uh on the opportunity lots of great alums coming out of scale as well.

Oh yeah that makes sense. Well, uh, congratulations on the latest news and thank you forward to meeting him coming on and talking to us for

you've got to have him on. He's excellent. Great to see you guys. Thanks for having me.