Meet the Geeks
Asher Siddiqui
General Partner, Sukna Ventures
Asher is a General Partner at Sukna Ventures - a MENA focused early stage VC Fund.
Asher also works with several VC funds and startups, typically on the Advisory Board and/or IC as a coach or mentor, including:
* Race Capital, Palo Alto, USA (prominent formation stage enterprise infrastructure deep tech VC fund led by Alfred Chuang - founder & CEO of BEA Systems, which he sold to Oracle for ~$8.6bn.)
* Merus Capital, Menlo Park, USA (top quartile early stage enterprise deep tech VC fund led by former Google and Microsoft corporate development executives.)
* Lumikai Fund, India (leading gaming and interactive media focused VC fund, led by seasoned gaming & media executives.)
* VI Partners, Switzerland (established health sciences and technology focused VC firm)
* Zayn Capital/Bitrate Ventures, Pakistan (leading early stage VC fund led by a seasoned GP)
* Unifonic, UAE & KSA (coach and mentor to the founders since 2016 of a leading CPaaS business, backed by Softbank)
* Sumsub (coach and mentor to the founders of the leading compliance as a service business)
Asher was previously part of the global leadership team (partner & member of the Investment Committee) at 500 Startups (now 500 Global), dividing time between San Francisco and Dubai, where he raised significant capital and was a partner on flagship fund(s).
Prior to 500, Asher was Vice President and Global Head of M&A and CVC at Etisalat Group. During his 10 year tenure, he led and closed deals valued at ~$15bn and was a member of the Investment Committee of Mobily Ventures (while seconded as Head of Corporate Development at Mobily) and a founding Board Member and Chairman of the Investment Committee at iMENA Group.
Asher started his career as an entrepreneur in the late 1990’s and was part of the early founding teams at several startups, including: Instantreg.com (co-founded event registration b2b SaaS business in Santa Clara), Asite.com (CommerceOne powered enterprise e-procurement portal in London), and the pre-launch development team of CNBC Africa (pan-African business news channel based in Johannesburg).
You can learn more about Asher at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashersiddiqui