[WATCH] Sheesha Finance: Decentralized Venture Builders with Saeed Al Darmaki at AIBC UAE 2022

With the AIBC UAE GameFi Stage platforming some of the hottest topics about the incoming Metaverse Revolution, Saeed Al Darmaki took to the stage to share Sheesha Finance’s vision and the role decentralization has in the future of venture funding.

Sheesha Finance: The Venture Builder of the Future

As the CEO and founder, Al Darmaki stated that the unique selling point of Sheesha Finance is the fact that it was built from the ground up to fund, incubate and scale projects while being a reflection of the decentralized principles Blockchain is inherently built on.

We keep building, we keep incubating, we keep accelerating projects and we share our experience, our knowledge and our network to all the projects out there.

He saw the sheer potential that decentralization offered to something as network-based as venture capital and incubation. With many of the projects benefiting greatly from the cross-pollination, media opportunities and networking capabilities offered by decentralization, Al Darmaki noted that it wouldn’t be long until more funds follow this novel model.

I think it’s only a matter of time before you see other decentralized VCs coming into the market and I hope it’s the same kind of model that we’re doing…imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Venture Builders: Dubai, Blockchain and more

Al Darkmaki then moved towards gauging the health of the industry itself. He noted that, while they had not been seeing the explosive growth as a few months previous, the industry as a whole was still gaining ground rapidly.

Thanks to the pandemic, which accelerated the use of technology such as Blockchain, we’re at the right place and the right time. There’s so many innovations that are yet to come, so many different use-cases out there.

Moving swiftly onwards to the aforementioned use-cases, he noted that while Play-to-Earn, NFTs and the Metaverse were very much in vogue, the team behind Sheesha Finance also looked towards powerful real-life use-cases. Before moving on to questions, he asked the entrepreneurs amongst the audience to get in touch if they had something disruptive in mind.

When elicited for his future plans for the fund as well as how an entity can be decentralized while having an executive team behind it, Al Darmaki had this to say;

We’re decentralized in terms of the team being spread out. Secondly, we have a DAO that we’re going to be implementing in a few weeks time which actually will allow the community that are staking on our platform to decide which projects to choose from in terms of investment, how the platform is run and how the company operates on a daily basis.

He also argued that, at an early stage, being fully decentralized would have been impractical due to the fact that the need for execution creates the necessity for a concrete team to approach and onboard projects into the process. This would include partner management, communication, research analysis and due diligence.

AIBC Americas debuts in Toronto:

Following the massive success that was AIBC Asia, the Summit’s first ever physical debut in the Americas is set to take Toronto by storm this June. Uniting the best and brightest in the emerging tech world, AIBC Americas will feature leading policy makers, executives, technologists and visionaries in groundbreaking areas such as AI, Blockchain and Quantum Computing. The Summit will be composed of three days of thought-leading panels, inspiring keynotes and a massive amount of opportunities to network, leaving our delegates several steps closer to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Join us from the 6th till the 9th of June in Toronto!