Issa Aghabi

Founder & Managing Partner at Access Bridge Ventures

Speaker

Issa's career has focused on finance and investments since 2004 with a focus on Venture Capital.

He started his career in investment banking and transitioned into the MENA Venture Capital space in 2006 as a founding member of Accelerator Technologies, one of the first venture funds in the Arab world. He has since occupied numerous roles that include M&A consultant at Yahoo!, Head of Investment at N2V - a regional Venture Builder, and Head of Investments and Venture Capital at twofour54.

Before establishing Access Bridge Ventures, Issa headed IFC’s Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, and Europe’s venture investments both from a Direct and Indirect (accelerators and fund of fund) perspective. He also supported the World Bank with key programs with various governments in the Middle East such as Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, and others.

His track record includes, having invested in 75+ direct and indirect investment deals (from $100K to $25M per transaction), managed over $150m in MENA Venture funds, launched the UAE’s first Accelerator, exited 6+ MENA-based deals (e.g Souq, Mumzworld, Jawaker, Vezeeta, Intaj, SAE) supported with 2 IPOs and much more.

Issa is now the founder and managing partner of Access Bridge Ventures, A leading early state MEPAP-focused Venture Fund that is based in the UAE. The mandate there is to invest in Pre-Series A transactions across the region. Issa has partnered with a mid-market PE fund in the UAE called Cedar Bridge to launch this. Further details about what Access Bridge focuses on as well as its growing portfolio can be found here: Access-Bridge.com

Issa holds an MBA with a focus on Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Corporate Finance from Cass Business School (City University of London) and a bachelor's degree in Commerce from Concordia University.