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Noor is the Founder and Managing Partner of Global Ventures, a UAE-based, Series-A focused, emerging-market venture capital firm with presence in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. With $300 million AUM, and financial returns rating it as a top decile fund, Global Ventures has become a leading investor across the Middle East and Africa.
Since its inception in 2018, Global Ventures has completed 60 investments and 5 exits across ten markets, deliberately focused on sectors positively affecting millions of lives across the world, such as FinTech, Digital Health, EdTech and AgriTech. In addition to generating top decile returns, the portfolio has had a demonstrable impact on millions of lives through its company founders creating 11,100 jobs, enabling female leadership, powering financial inclusion for over 64 million people and expanding healthcare access to over 6.8 million patients.
Prior to Global Ventures, Noor was the first woman to operate, scale and IPO a company in the MENA region, listing Depa on NASDAQ Dubai and the London Stock Exchange for US$1.1 billion in April 2008. One of the world’s largest interior contractors, Noor scaled Depa tenfold, expanding operations from six countries to 22, including four cross-border acquisitions.
Identified by Forbes as one of the “World’s Top 50 Women in Tech” and by Arabian Business as one of the “Most Influential Arabs”, Noor’s previous roles include Chief Investment Officer at The Dubai Future Foundation and a Founding Partner at Leap Ventures. Noor also founded the largest chain of yoga and pilates studios in the Middle East, ZenYoga, which was acquired by Cedarbridge in 2014.
Noor is the Founding Chairwoman of the Middle East Venture Capital Association, and a Director of the Global Private Capital Association, TechWadi, and the Karman Fellowship. She is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders. She previously held Board Director roles at MIT Sloan and was a founding board member of Endeavor UAE.
Noor holds Bachelors’ degrees in Finance and Economics from Boston College, and a MBA from MIT Sloan.
2 minutes Read
In this session, Medea Nocentini, Founder of C3, and Noor Sweid, General Partner of Global Ventures, discuss the role of ESG and governance in the venture. They share their experiences building an impact-focused venture capital firm and the importance of merging operations and thinking for the benefit of early-stage founders.
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In this session, industry leaders Arjun Sethi, Noor Sweid, and Ahmed Al Nowais discuss private growth investing and offer insights on untapped markets, venture building, and sustainable businesses.
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For many the Metaverse (MV) is more than the future of the internet and gaming: It has the potential to reshape digital goods and services and to become the new backbone of core business and customer applications. Who and what will shape the emergence of the Metaverse? How might you turn the Metaverse into an enterprise platform? What do investors need to consider before investing in what could be the next big thing, or just a new toy?
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Globalization is moving into a new era. While cross-border digital flows are set to grow exponentially, the world is also becoming more multipolar and the engines of growth more diverse. Geopolitical competition is playing an ever-greater role across industries, affecting trade as well as global cooperation on standards and licenses to operate. How might these forces impact investors and markets? Which sectors are most exposed and what signals should investors watch?
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