GITEX was a behemoth conference that welcomed 6,000 delegates and over 100,000 visitors to Dubai last week. Those who participated found a whirlwind of innovation, tech insights, and networking, but the real magic happens after the event – when you follow up.

If you’re wondering how to turn those connections into new opportunities, here’s a quick guide on best practices after getting home from the investment extravaganza.

The golden rule is don’t wait too long. Ideally, you should reach out within 48 to 72 hours of the event while the conversation is still fresh in everyone’s mind. On the other hand, huge conferences put you together with so many people that follow-up can be a bit different.

Given the amount of time required to attend the conference and then travel back home, folks are pretty waterlogged until midweek with catching up from what they missed, and there’s a decent chance your message will fall into the “respond later” category.

Try to target follow-up for a 10-day window from the end of the conference so the connection is still recent but you haven’t bombarded your new contacts as soon as they are back online. Additionally, put a reminder on your calendar for three days after you’ve sent these notes to ping anyone who hasn’t responded. 

Follow-up Tips

1. Personalize Your Message: Refer to a specific detail from your conversation – whether it’s about their business, a shared interest, or a session you both attended. This makes your follow-up feel more genuine and thoughtful.

2. Keep It Short and Sweet: People are busy so get to the point quickly. Your follow-up should be friendly, clear, and concise. Don’t overwhelm them with too much information at once.

3. Offer Value: When possible, offer something valuable in your message, whether it’s a relevant article, a connection they might benefit from, or simply the next steps for continuing your discussion. Make it about them, not just you.

4. Connect on LinkedIn: If you haven’t already, connect with them on LinkedIn. Send a brief message mentioning where you met and express excitement about staying in touch.

5. Follow Up on Promises: If you promised to send more information, do it. Send the presentation, the additional info, or the proposal as promised. Being reliable goes a long way in building trust.

Email Follow-up Template

Let’s make this easy – here is an email template you can edit to your liking: 

Subject: Great meeting you at GITEX!

Hi [Name],

It was a pleasure meeting you at GITEX! I really enjoyed our chat about [specific topic]. I’d love to explore how we can collaborate further. Let me know if you’re available for a quick call in the next week.

Looking forward to staying connected!

Best,

[Your Name]

Planning for Next Year

GITEX 2025 might seem far away, but the best time to start planning is now! Take notes on what worked this year and what didn’t. Did you attend enough sessions? Did you focus on the right networking opportunities? Start setting your goals for next year based on this experience.

It’s also worth revisiting the connections you made periodically throughout the year. You don’t need to wait until GITEX 2025 to reconnect – check in periodically to see how things are progressing in their world, and you’ll find yourself in a much better position when the next GITEX rolls around.

Remember, successful networking is about nurturing relationships. Your follow-up is where the seeds planted last week at GITEX start to grow.

Khaled Talhouni, Managing Partner of Nuwa Capital, says the recent proliferation of tech IPOs in the Gulf demonstrates that a “window is opening” for investors on stock exchanges in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and some of their neighbors.

Talhouni, 39, has a broad view of developments in regional finance, having opened offices in both Dubai and Riyadh for the venture capital firm, which manages $100 million in assets.

After attending college at Duke University in the U.S., Talhouni returned to the UAE for a job at Dubai International Capital, where he worked on the region’s first seed capital fund. He directed investments and strategy at twofour54 in Abu Dhabi and went on to become a Managing Partner at Wamda Capital. He started Nuwa in 2020.

Nuwa’s backers include Saudi Arabia’s Al Faisaliah Group, Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co., Jada Fund of Funds and the Dubai Future District Fund. Among its 30 portfolio companies are Calo, a Bahrain-based meal planning start-up; Zest Equity, an online platform for managing venture capital investments; and Raqamyah, a Saudi crowdfunding platform.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are the major trends you see these days among investors in Middle East businesses?

I think with what’s going on in Saudi Arabia with a lot of very successful IPOs having happened in the past 24 months – particularly but not necessarily in tech, but across the board – we are seeing huge interest in participating in late-stage tech or late-stage, pre-IPO types of deals. That is because investors are seeing how there is a quick return on the back of that.

Also in the UAE, there is the Talabat deal coming up soon as well. So IPOs seem to be the hottest topic in town. I would say that is kind of moving in a big way.

One thing you see a lot more are direct deals, a lot more, so you do see people much more interested in going direct, as opposed to funds. You do see an interest in profitability. I would say that’s kind of increasingly of interest.

As we head into 2025, do you see further new companies being founded, or do you see more acquisitions than founding opportunities?

I think a couple of things are going to happen. First, I think funding is going to pick up because a lot of people are coming into some new dry powders. Some new funds are closing so things are moving. Then those who are sitting on the side have some deployment pressure that they need to deploy.

Secondly, I think a lot of early-stage companies, as funding has dried up relative to what it was in 2020-2021, [are going to be acquired]. We are going to see a lot of mid-tier companies and startups start consolidating into larger ones. So there is a lot of consolidation. More “aqua” (acquisition) hires. So bigger tech companies buying up talent or buying companies, or aqua hiring, or merging with companies that are smaller than them, that basically augment their offering, or add to their existing offering. 

 In terms of founding companies,  that trend is secular. So that trend is continuing no matter what. So you see more and more every year, more companies being founded, regardless of what’s going on in the capital market.

Do we foresee a market correction where only the best companies will survive and move on to series A and beyond? 

That’s the natural state of affairs. It should be like that. The unusual period was those couple of years in 2020, 2021, 2022, when everything was getting funded all the time. That’s unusual, but I think the natural [way that things] occur is actually, the majority of companies don’t survive going from Series A to Series B.

We are seeing movement within the IPO space while, at the same time, smaller businesses are struggling. What’s going on in the market? 

There is a slowdown, a little bit of a consumer slowdown, particularly in Saudi a little bit. That’s definitely kind of happening in some small way. I think there’s also some liquidity constraints. So that’s definitely happening overall. I think it is very sector-specific. 

However, consumer spend overall is being stretched. Which is why, on the other hand, companies, in BNPL (Buy-now-pay-later) and consumer credit seem to be doing so well. So they are really growing very, very aggressively. It is a little bit of a tale of specificities depending on which segment you’re in, you’re having a very different reality.

How has the wave of IPOs and exits shaped the current venture capital environment within the region? What do you think is going to happen in the next coming years?

So on the IPO front, it is extremely positive. I don’t know if you remember this, this whole route was not open. You know, as early as three, four years ago, there were no tech IPOs in the region, and there are very few IPOs overall. Right? Like, it was not a very vibrant capital market generally. So I think the fact that this window is opening, and there is demand, and there’s regulatory reform, and there’s opening up, especially on the Tadawul exchange in Saudi but even on the DFM in Dubai and ADX in Abu Dhabi, I think is extremely positive. 

So that’s kind of spurring all kinds of more activity in the space to create validation that you can exit your startup through an IPO, which is typically, if you look at in other developed markets, it’s not the main way companies exit, but it’s not the majority of how startups exit, but it’s where the largest exit has happened. That had not really been open to our region before. And now this opening up really kind of creates some ability, some exit paths for startups at the larger base.

How does Nuwa Capital see the whole startup ecosystem moving forward? What role do you play in this within the region? 

We see that the sovereign system is maturing. We do still think that there is still a huge room for more and more companies, for more and more companies to get funded, and more capital to throw on the startup ecosystem. I think there are probably too many individual VCs. So I think it’s a bit fragmented, and I can see that the market is also consolidating and or kind of getting a bit more concentrated, with the larger firms and the more established firms getting disproportionate amounts of the capital in the long run.

As for us, we are very keen on continuing on our mission, which is to kind of really invest in early-stage companies, impact the very best founders, and grow our business on the back of that.  We have some companies that are beginning to mature within our portfolio. So we are hoping to position for exit in the coming two to three years. But then we also have a very young portfolio as well, so we will see how that kind of evolves over the coming years.

A jump in dealmaking across the Middle East and North Africa has generated an estimated $1 billion in investment banking fees so far this year – a 27% boost over the first nine months of 2023, with HSBC leading the pack.

London-based HSBC earned $80.4 million in fees during the first three quarters of 2024, or 7.8% of the total investment banking pool, Zawya reports, citing LSEG Deals Intelligence.

Coming second in the banking field’s league tables was Standard Chartered with $56.5 million in fees, followed by First Abu Dhabi Bank with $56 million. The highest amount of investment banking fees were generated from Saudi Arabia ($470.7 million), followed by the UAE ($395.9 million), Qatar ($45 million), Kuwait ($41.7 million) and Egypt ($25.1 million).

The largest deal in the MENA region during the first nine months of 2024 was ADNOC’s $14.8 billion takeover offer for German chemicals company Covestro, according to the LSEG data. The largest during the third quarter was UAE clean energy firm Masdar’s offer to buy Spain’s Saeta Yield from Brookfield Renewable for $1.4 billion.

Having visited U.S. President Joe Biden earlier in the month at the White House, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed is continuing his international travels with a stop in Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted the Emirati leader for dinner on Sunday, with an official meeting set for today that will focus both on commercial relations, as well as the conflicts with Ukraine and in the Middle East, according to a Kremlin statement.

Trade between the two countries has tripled to $7 billion over the last three years, even as Russia has been subject to sanctions applied by the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union.

Putin personally thanked the UAE President for mediating a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine, the statement said.

Following the Moscow visit, Sheikh Mohammed will travel on Tuesday to the Russian city of Kazan for a summit of the BRICS group of nations, which it joined in January.

UAE retail giant LuLu plans to sell a 25% stake of the company in an IPO starting Oct. 28, with its shares hitting the ADX trading floor on Nov. 14.

The business, which owns hypermarkets, supermarkets and malls across the MENA region, as well as in India and Malaysia, is looking to raise as much as $1.8 billion through the share sale, Zawya reports.

The Abu Dhabi-based company founded by Yussuf Ali counts ADQ as an investor, having sold the sovereign wealth fund a 20% stake in 2020.

Emirates NBD Capital, HSBC Holdings, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and Citigroup are joint bookrunners on the IPO, with Moelis & Co. retained as financial advisor.

Robots ambled through the vast exhibition halls of the Dubai World Trade Centre today, capturing the attention of thousands of participants during Day 2 of the GITEX Global 2024 conference, The Circuit’s Omnia Al Desoukie reports.

Racing through the international crowd were late arrivals for panel discussions featuring some of the top luminaries in AI research, many delayed by the bumper-to-bumper traffic that annually accompanies the Middle East’s biggest tech conference.

Those who squeezed into today’s showcase session heard Peng Xiao, CEO of the UAE’s G42 artificial intelligence company, back from a trip to the U.S. after recently completing deals with Nvidia, Microsoft and Open AI.

“What I can tell you right now is that the relationship bilaterally, between the U.S. and the UAE cannot be stronger,” Xiao said. “Everything from defense to technology collaboration – we reached a new height.”

Calling attention to a new Climate Technology Center that he announced earlier with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the G42 chief said the two companies are using advanced hardware and software capabilities “to unlock the mystery of weather forecasting and the prevention and handling of extreme weather,” adding, “We are right now working with the best and brightest.”

Among those visiting the conference during its opening day on Monday was Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Ruler of Dubai and the UAE’s vice President Prime Minister, who pointed to a 40% increase in international participation at the event as an indication of Dubai’s global importance in AI. Among the pavilions at which he stopped were those of G42, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Etisalat, Huawei and H3C.

“We have a clear vision to advance the UAE’s leadership in the global digital and technology landscape, making it the world’s most future-ready nation,” Sheikh Mohammed said.

GITEX Global 2024 kicked off today with tens of thousands of investors, startup founders and geeks from around the world elbowing their way through the world’s biggest tech conference, Omnia Al Desoukie reports from the floor of the Dubai World Trade Centre.

While the event pulses all week with dealmaking, product launches and pounding hip-hop music inside the colossal exhibition halls, it has also snagged Dubai International Airport and virtually all major traffic arteries leading to the venue, with top hotels fully booked months ago. Some 1,200 investors and 1,800 startups from more than 100 countries are participating in GITEX, organizers said.

Opening the proceedings on the main stage this morning, UAE Minister of Economy Abdullah Bin Touq Al Marri presented the small Gulf state’s ambitions to become a superpower in the development of AI technology and a magnet for the world’s top tech talent.

“The UAE wants to shape the global dialogue on AI, creating policies that promote responsible usage while pushing the boundaries of innovation,” Al Marri said. “The idea is to bring policymakers and tech experts together to create an environment where innovation thrives.”

Among other government and corporate leaders scheduled to appear were Omar Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications; Peng Xiao, Group CEO of G42; Michael Spranger, President SONY AI; Isabell Gradert, Airbus Vice President of Central Research & Technology; Dr. Najwa Aaraj, CEO of the Technology Innovation Institute; and Dr. Mohamed Al-Kuwaiti, Head of the UAE Cybersecurity Council.

At the Expand North Star conference on Sunday, a GITEX spinoff focused on startups, Al Olama told the crowd of thousands at Dubai Harbour that putting money into the country’s early-stage companies will pay off for investors.

“We believe the future of the digital economy will be created in Dubai – in the UAE,” Al Olama said. “The UAE stands for building a business environment that is truly global.”

Lunate, the upstart $105 billion asset manager fueled by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth, is mulling an investment in the fast-growing private credit market.

The firm, launched in January by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed’s International Holding Co. may buy a minority stake in New York-based HPS Investment Partners, which itself is considering an IPO or sale, Bloomberg reports.

Lunate is evaluating an investment of $1 billion or more in HPS, according to the news agency, which says the company is also entertaining interest from BlackRock and private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.

The origins of Lunate trace back to two of Abu Dhabi’s most active holding companies, IHC and sovereign wealth fund ADQ.

It was in March 2023 that IHC announced plans to establish a multi-asset class investment manager, which later became Lunate, and bring on U.S. private equity firm General Atlantic as a strategic partner and investor.