SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Future Ventures Podcast. I'm Scaling with Clary. Today I'm joined by Emanuele Pizzati, a managing partner at FutureWave in Switzerland. Emanuele has spent more than a decade working across venture capital, family offices, asset management, corporate venturing, and impact investment with exposure across Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. At FutureWave, he is helping to build a next generation asset management platform focused on flexible investment structures, smart infrastructure, sustainability, and long-term capital allocation. He has also lectured on entrepreneurship and venture capital, as well as coach startups across Swiss and European innovation programs. Today we explore how private capital needs to evolve in a world that is continuely shaped by AI, infrastructure constraints, regulation, sustainability, and geopolitical change. Emanuele, welcome to the stage.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Hi, Maxime. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

It's my absolute pleasure to have you on. It seems like over the last little while we've had quite a few guests from uh from Switzerland. I mean, Switzerland has always been at the epicenter of finance and capital. And for clarity, I lived in Canada for I've lived in Canada for 30 years, but my brother and his family, they live in Switzerland, they've done the same. They lived in Switzerland for 30 years. So he works for a private bank there. Um, and so I get a bit of a sense from kind of like what's happening in Switzerland on the on the on the banking side. Um, but why don't we just kind of start the origin story, Manuel? How did you get into uh into venture and how did you get into doing what you're currently doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yeah, Max. That's definitely um look uh after graduation I had essentially two paths, right? One was diplomacy, and uh I withdrew my application. I was actually selected for a position, and then I went straight straight in uh post-incubation VC. Uh that was uh back then was uh 2014, 13, back then in um in my canton, which is the Italian one, so very tiny region. Spent uh yeah three years, right? And then I essentially moved to Zurich after a little banking experience. I also have it. Uh you know, it's not surprising that a Swiss citizen in finance did not pass through a Swiss bank for a moment. Yeah, yeah, I had to say, yeah, that was a credit suisse, so entirely a different bank uh than the one that possibly everybody saw in the recent years. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

So I mean that that that that's interesting. Uh it's interesting that from very early on you were determined to to focus on this space. Um, how what what are the origin stories of future wave? Uh tell me a little bit more about future wave and what are you guys working on? It sounds like you're working on kind of shaping, transforming the way that we think about capital.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Right, like um, I must admit, uh, sometimes some partners uh are telling us you should focus more, all right? You should not really do everything that you really uh like, but possibly uh focusing more. That's actually the the situation we are in because we are covering now yeah uh more than one jurisdiction. Actually, the idea of by the end of the year to cover four jurisdictions already. Uh exactly. So obviously on the play there is a lot, actually. You can imagine, but um, yeah, future wave, you know, also the name of the company, right? It was essentially thought to bring something new into the investing um ecosystem, right? Uh, not only focusing on asset management, but also bringing something to the assets, right? So that can be around commercial development, for instance, or something that I think is quite unique in our approach is also the ability of supporting those assets in uh public affairs, so to say, right? So we like governmental uh backed projects, uh, we like to yeah uh support those companies entering new markets, right? So through joint ventures, distribution partnership, etc. And today, you know, given that uh you know, we yeah, we don't necessarily like the VC model, yeah. We like more uh strong balance sheet companies, infrastructure exposed, growth stage, right? So more infra less VC, just uh to understood.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

And can I uh uh can I just unpack um a little bit more what you said? Can you give us the investment thesis? What are the four jurisdictions that you're currently in? Um kind of like what is an ideal company or project to invest in? I'm interested to a little to unpack a little bit more of the like kind of like what's what what lies behind the investment decisions?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Yes, that's that's a very fun question to we can debate for hours, uh Maxim, I can't quite sure. Uh and in fact, you know, after COVID, um, you know, the first investment thesis was developed, right? Um, and eventually took shape possibly in 2022 uh and 23, where we have eventually this um uh market was down, right? Uh the VC was not as it was before COVID, right? So we tried to really re-engineer a little bit what um a successful fund, right, would need to perform. Uh so really DPI. So the key question was what can we do to ensure DPI and quick also this uh uh uh so obviously there was more attention to less assets, yeah. So really expose also ourselves like in C-level advisory, uh CEO shadowing when possible. Um, and that really goes in the direction of uh let's improve the top line of those companies, right? What can we do here? And uh so the thesis was founded on that perspective, and then we added the pillar of okay, the exit, right? Because that actually is also uh necessary. So um without saying that for Haz was only B2B um companies that are uh around infrastructure, right? So this already a solid, more solid balance sheet, so to say, and really the ability to you know shape them, uh specifically on the commercial development, including also uh public affairs, right? As an example, we we can relate quite well with IFIs, the EIB that we have here, right? Or um uh banks or institutions of the kind, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:13

How big you how big are the companies that you typically invest in? How like what kind of um funding do you provide to them?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Yeah, so it depends now on the jurisdiction, right? Um now we are as um as you were also asking, we are covering Switzerland here, right, where we are essentially operating from from. Yeah, uh we have Liechtenstein, right? So not that far, right? But still is another country, and that's the European Economic Area. Yeah, we are looking at data centers. Uh so that's uh and here, look, uh, there is so much now going on, not only on the uh data center itself, but also adjacent verticals, uh, modular data centers, or even uh you know, power capacity, you know, all of those things are of interest. Here we are more on the depth side, yeah, and uh we are really debating internally quite a lot, right? What is the uh the gem that we want to take in terms of allocation, right? Uh, there are many theories. I think we are really coming down now relatively yeah, soon with uh the final thesis of this fund, right? Now we are already lining up the assets that we want to invest in, and uh and that's just fun. Uh then we have Saudi uh coming up also. This is although it's uh in a joint venture uh scenario, so we are less involved, right? And that will be very much around water and agriculture. I remember somebody telling me right here we have a lot of oil, but no water, it does a solution, all right. So, water infrastructure, agricultural infrastructure, those are good things. And then look, if we are not uh running uh over capacity, we also have a Maltese uh dream, right? Uh, and that is more on green building, so yeah, it's more equity. Yeah, the other ones are more infrafinancing, and obviously, when we can also take it equity.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Amazing, amazing. And so those are the three geography. So um Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Saudi Arabia. What's the fourth one?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Oh, Switzerland. I'm sorry, it's Malta, pardon, right? It's uh it's Malta. Malta, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Why Malta? Malta is a small island just off the coast of Italy.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Well, uh, it's uh yeah, one might say so, but I can give you two two main reasons. One okay in winter time is a good place to go, but apart from there, it's also coming from one one of our investors, right? So essentially we had to to to take a decision in that sense. So and uh I've been there, I like it.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Yeah, I mean it's amazing that we were in in Switzer in Switzerland, we've been to Switzerland many times because the family, but um, we were in Sicily uh two or three years ago, and we were highly, highly debating as to whether to hop over to Malta. Um, just because we've had a ton of friends of ours that have gone to Malta, like this is amazing, like absolutely amazing, it's unique. Go go visit. We just we we couldn't make it work from a timing perspective.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's not that small, by the way. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, so that is, you know, uh, let's hit first the other two that we have ahead, and then maybe there will be also Matter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

How much money there is behind you? Like, uh what's what's the fund? Is it the finding? I mean, I uh the reason why I'm framing this question is because on one side you're doing the finance, on the other side you're doing the investing, so it's a probably a bit of both.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, correct, but uh cannot really disclose everything here, specifically in uh in public. Yeah, but uh just to give you context, right? We we have the fund structures, right? Yeah, but then we have also um radically uh non-structured well management advisory practice, if you like.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Nice, right? And and what kind of services do you deliver on the on the advisory sides beyond what you call public affairs? We would probably call it investor relations, but kind of like like what what advisory services do you deliver?

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Well, I mean, they go very much in hand in hand with the assets, right? When when we look at a company or project, we really try to look at ourselves what are uh our capabilities, you know. Yeah, do we fit here, right? Can we pull them in two, three um uh micons in their business plan, right? And most of the time they go really in the direction of additional financing, so not for instance grants. Um, there were some examples right that we did before, and uh practically including those uh companies and projects into publicly led programs. As an example, let's assume that the city of Munich, right, just they need to do a few um uh changes, right, on buildings, right? And then well, we do have the right technology company for the right project, therefore we're trying to you know uh advance those conversations on their behalf, right? So we we use it, you know, this is eventually is uh cash flow security for those companies, improving top lines, then we are happy to.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

So we're working on on a number of different projects in the Caribbean. Um, as you know, a lot of the Caribbean states uh states have aggregated on the CARECOM, and their top three priorities are waste management in that particular order, food independence, and energy independence. And we're looking at um um it is as you can imagine, the Caribbean states are strapped for cash. So we're looking at uh PPP, uh like private-public partnerships is the is the method, where the the whole idea is we want to drive uh net economic benefit, the impact, the economic impact assessment has to drive a lot of positive attribution. We cannot disrupt the existing jobs that are currently in place. We we have to be able to generate money, it has to be lower than what exists, and we have found some of the solution with some of the funding that you're describing fit a project like that that has a like if it's energy, it has a power purchase arrangement that is there for 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Um yeah, those are things that we like for sure. All of that, okay. Um, you know, we are not impact driven in that sense, right? But we do take care, right? We simply don't market ize as uh such, right? But uh, I would say that we carry quite a lot of uh you know DNA altogether in impact, uh waste management, uh lovely actually. Uh energy for sure. And uh yeah, the only thing uh right now we don't necessarily have a focus there, right, in terms of geographies, right? Uh right now we are very much into Middle East and um and Europe, right? But uh with the opportunities that we are going to look at, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:24

That's uh amazing, amazing, amazing. Yeah, no, there's definitely we should continue outside of this conversation, but there's a ton of opportunity. Um now uh kind of I mean you think it differently about capital, like in you you describe future ventures as a future ventures, so it's similar names future wave with future ventures. Um you describe your future wave as rejecting the kind of the rigid legacy model. What specifically is broken in traditional asset management today?

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Oh right, um, look, um the specific VC model, right? Let's start with this one, right? Yeah, you know. Um also I indirectly, we also had bad experiences, right, around us, right? But uh, I think that you know some of them, right, of funds today, right, not performing after COVID, they're still alive, right? So, you know, technological shifts that was a big hit. Um, and also if you like today with those two macro turns, the ormots and the AI, right, which is reshuffling a little bit the um the returns here on the entire folio, Maxim. Um, so that's that's actually the the condition. So, what can we do here? It's possibly focusing on on less, yeah, and uh and really take care more about the assets, yeah. So that that is why you know if we touch something, we don't like to lose.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Uh let's of course, of course, yeah. Yeah, so you don't believe in power law distribution, you believe in cash flow positive, return positive.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Yes, exactly. That's that's a good summary, Max.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

I think more investment should be like that. I mean, obviously, there's that there is room for risk. Um, um, because I mean the typical venture capital motto is like you you you place both bets, and some of them will work, some of them will not work. But I find that uh you talk about you talked about DPI. I find that a lot of the investors these days are like, I want something that I can get my money out at some point sooner rather than later. And I uh you know, I want to make money, and I really want to make more money than I just put them in an index fund.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Right, yeah. Look, I I was uh um just deviating a little bit. I was having this uh meeting some some months back. There was the this fund in private credit, and uh eventually, look, I was trying to understand the allocation of there in terms of industry, and it turns out they had an exposure of 15 in uh SaaS companies. All right, okay. Uh, so what is going to happen here, right? Because now AI might shift a little bit, you know, might change a little bit the cards on the table here. And the answer was yes, don't worry, we will tell those managers to uh shift the model from um SaaS to uh pay per action, right? And uh you know you have a very liquid fund, obviously, this is private credit, so much lower returns. Uh, then you might see that there is kind of uh uh might be a problem, right? So, you know, if also on the credit side, right? We are also looking at those things, you know, you might want to have a solid underlying in uh in DC, right? So so again, we don't consider ourselves a venture capital at all, right? We really are in growth, possibly see ourselves that kind of the player that can bring those companies to uh private equity level, and again, if things go very wrong, then there is a balance sheet behind, right? It's not uh software, so to say. So, you know, we we we are we do have really this mentality, right? So fewer, more attention, and uh solid. So we are also taking um less returns, that's okay. Of course, of course.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Of course, uh and I mean um lower returns also means lower risk, um, and more more predictable outcomes than higher returns, which means higher risk, and your likelihood of success is a bit of a cap shoot. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Um, I wanted to um talk a little bit about uh something that that you've coined. Um when you say adaptive capital, what does this actually mean for you in practice?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Adaptive capital. Yeah, yeah. So look, I think that um this can be defined really, you know, matching also the company plans, right? You know, the mayor in different stages, right? But look, the very first um this that we had was really having um a play, having practically the possibility of of investing pretty much with almost every instrument there. So this you know, this financial reengineering or engineering right is something that that we we have right inside. So we really try to think outside the box in that perspective, yeah. And also uh must say, you know, obviously, if if we are helping a company securing also additional grants as an example, being included into a program, right? Or securing a joint venture of the kind, but ideally, we would like to get awarded also there, right? So we also have a mechanism that eventually uh capture additional value by non-diluting also those companies. So you know, you are bringing 10 in sales, perfect, and then the company has another evaluation, also. So this is what we are looking at. So therefore, you know, we always appoint um an advisor to the board or maybe an iterator. Uh, if we are lucky, uh, as at C level. This is really that what is inside the thesis, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Understood, understood. Um I mean you you're thinking uh very much similar to us in terms of kind of like what we're building. Um we're a little bit behind in terms of what you have built, but um future where if appears to combine uh a fund structuring, advisory, direct opportunity. Do you think that that would be kind of the future of private markets, less product, more platform, more ability to draft incremental value for um I wouldn't even call them investment because they could be projects, investments. Um tell me kind of like how do you think about the future and and and why this attracted you so much?

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Yeah, well, look, you know, we we we like to have options, right? Optionalities. So therefore, you know, we already started, you know, okay, we have a plan of design, right? Therefore, we can actually develop also multiple things at the same time. So it's also diversification, if you like, right? And also we have you know the possibility of hosting, also other strategies. Maybe we like them as well. And this is actually happening, right? We actually had quite um relatively good demand, right? Of those things, but we we are not able to to to to satisfy everything. Um you you asked something interesting. Yeah, what is

SPEAKER_00 22:00

the future is um definitely our industry is changing quite a lot right uh right there is uh this democratization right of deals right now accessibility is also granted to um uh uh you know smaller investors almost retail right there is the um green green uh fund right every green fund as an example so um there are different options here what i see now happening is possibly a polarization in the sense that you have very very early stage investments or funds even so and this is yeah around AI practically right is quite right there is quite a lot or you go really really up yeah and then you have yeah practically the pre-IPO things all so what i what they think and this is sad actually that really what the capital in between of ability is not going to be that much in my opinion and that's um so if you go in series well you might want to be careful right so for us you we definitely look uh above that but also um you know we might also take in uh projects uh they might be validated for instance there was a plant uh fully financed operating maybe there is a second one and we can go for that one uh only right so yeah we like validation please so i i want to make sure they're understanding so you you kind of um mapped the the the the the journey of a a company at least from a from a financing perspective like you know the the angel the pre-seed the seed the series a um and and beyond um where do you see the biggest opportunities because like where where the opportunities the most the risk but perhaps the valuations are higher kind of like series a imposed or do you see somewhere somewhere else is i i just wasn't clear yeah no no no for for much for us it's actually uh definitely more growth companies also we are not keeped you know to look at uh pre-seed uh seed um data for instance in ai where you have companies with uh 100x on on sales just to name one or non name one but that obviously is it's not a startup but still yeah uh you know we we are not uh have the full capabilities to uh those assessments right we are not uh uh coders you know so we are more operators right management that's where we come from got it got it got it got it now that that that that makes sense um now if i understand correctly based on my research emmanuele um you've you've spent quite a bit of time working with family offices how should family offices think about private markets differently from institutions yeah uh look that's uh quite interesting question um and depends also i would like to maybe contextualize one one important point because unfortunately in switzerland we have um a different definition of family office right okay because uh compared to america in the sense right right or us because here look we have also a lot of wealth managers right so hello yeah maxim actually my connection went went down for a moment are you still with me i'm still with you you froze a little bit but you're back on a little pixelated but you're back on yeah sorry now uh i'm back yeah so practically no i was saying that you know we have a lot of wealth managers right so those are essentially private banks right so they they have different logic in uh allocating into private markets because you know eventually it is uh not under management you know if he and they they cannot uh intervene in your port in in the portfolio yeah so this is very common in Switzerland right the dangers of life programming we just lost Emanuele let's see if we can get him back on to continue the interview hello you're back I'm so sorry we were we were online I think right yeah we're online we're talking about family offices the difference between a traditional family office and wealth manager in Switzerland I'm sorry something happened to my connection but uh yeah practically look here we have uh uh multifamily office quite a lot right and and those entities eventually do do not necessarily want to invest in private markets because then you know they they uh they cannot optimize the portfolio for the clients right so you know despite possibly you know the liquid side is um very well developed in my opinion the private markets is not really the case specifically for private banks when then we have the family officer and then that happened also that I've been consulting right or helping and uh yeah to answer your question what what they want right there is possibly a passion for things but also fit in the portfolio right this is people that we like to work with and obviously the other ones that they just like VIP okay so that's that's also the case so back to kind of like what goes in the portfolio um what makes a private marketing opportunity truly institutional great before it starts to look institutional at what point does it pique the interest enough uh of an institution to invest in a private market opportunity right what I see happening in Europe is um um one important fact right is actually that uh it's very much related to the geography for instance in France maybe there is uh a sovereign fund right and they they want you to invest there right so this is in Europe is actually quite a lot I think it's quite dry now right uh the fundraising market here but um so that are those conditions that are coming with um with uh allocators of the kind right but then there are also other ones and in fact like for us right also emerging like what we thought was let's uh be an advisor first not a full asset management firm and for use uh practically a co-GP also right uh with uh uh institution practically so that's that's also what we we we did and uh I would say that the partners that we have there is very good yeah yeah that's amazing I mean like it it it's almost like I'm listening to myself because that that's how we we're thinking about the same way um a lot of like I mean I'm sure it is the same with you like we get a lot of pitches I'm like look uh I don't know you I've never met you like like how do you expect me to invest in in into what you're building but if we have some form of a working relationship what it's on mentorship advisory like then I I know who you are what you stand for are you are you doing what you say that you're going to do are you hitting the milestone do you have traction it becomes a lot easier to invest in an advisory client than in this in like somebody you've never met regardless of how locative or exciting the opportunity may look like yeah I I can agree more here and eventually if I look back right look um eventually you tend to look more the company that have been well referred uh maybe there is already some believing right and then you might want to add on on that so that's that's interesting is how you know also we have uh quite a lot of deal flow uh but uh we don't have capacity to uh unfortunately okay I mean we live in a trust economy um those like a company that gets referred a lot means that it it has a high credibility score high trust high trust index and so you're far more likely to look at some some something or company or founder somebody that has been referred to say hey doing amazing things go have a conversation with them right right that's exactly what's happened yeah yeah now you talked about like um uh smart infrastructure ai data centers um and and and and this just includes this in terms of the financing um why is this infrastructure becoming one of the most important technology stories of of the next decade and and is this here now is it going to be here for the next four five six years until kind of the electricity demand catches up um or compute catches up to um to to the demand uh kind of give me your perspective on on on on this opportunity yeah so look um infrastructure has traditionally been an asset class right I think that the way that we are now seeing this uh ourselves is there is obviously a declination on the industry right and uh you know this asset class is there for a lot of years right yeah so I think that you know if uh the there will be some technological change uh macro right there will be impacting satellite nuclear right but then there will be other areas right so um you know obviously you want to have expertise also in those domains which we cannot cover ourselves and therefore we need also to even get very good uh referral right over at least that uh eventually can advise us on that and that's also why we wanted to partner up with strategic because eventually we can source also these capabilities but again our way of looking at businesses is really self-assessing right can we add value that's really the the the key question right because can we can improve uh our returns right so okay uh we didn't build entire thesis on that but yes that's that's very interesting and are you purely looking at terror opportunities or terror plus space look um it depends right look right now we were looking very much into an opportunistic one now we we think that we have to go a little bit uh you know more solid right so now in fact the debate we have is shall we prioritize a little bit this one that is more expansion right or so it depends I would say and also it will depend also on the strategy now I'm very much focusing on Liechtenstein and what I'm actually uh commenting on Saudi as an example will have uh something different right there will be you know we will not inter intervene much in the uh investment management decisions but so okay I understand makes sense um so AI is often this the discussed as a software but the bottlenecks are really more infrastructure uh wise bit like or or physical tangible like kind of like how much power like can you can you build a power plant that would generate electricity to to to to to power the the data center or cooling or chips or powered land or interconnection to to the grid grid capacity like uh ability to to to match peaking demand but gonna how are you thinking about ai as an infrastructure investment team oh uh don't grin me no well uh ai for us is the software part right but then you have so the enablement of that right and this is you know study from the data center on the chat and those are things that we can eventually look at but uh ai for sure is impacting so much everything and uh it will continue to do so so uh I think that for for the first time you know uh there are some sectors where that we are not into uh but I think it's not uh it's more challenging now to you know predict where you are going to go and that I was referring also before on those uh VC funds that were a little bit challenged after COVID and uh and now possibly because now the underlying portfolio the quality of the company is much different simply because those there are those macroeconomic changes and those are so for us you know you know the way that we look at okay let's again look at the balance sheet as well right are the uh other sets right that eventually can be used or can be used elsewhere also right this is so obviously you know the tech spend alone per se is not for us understand understood um i i just wanted to unpack this a little bit more where do you see the best risk adjusted opportunities around data center is it the build out of the facilities themselves the the power plants that kind of power the data centers cooling great technology edge infrastructure kind of like where do you see the best risk adjusted opportunities right look um that might also have some geographical um differences right because i was actually discussing today with uh um somebody in in in the netherlands and uh obviously they have uh uh very big problem with the power supply right so obviously if you you know if you win a contract of the kind to bring efficiency right or to you know uh do more with with those uh uh companies right uh then that is possibly good right uh for certain right then um uh then if you ask me that's what I like is modular data centers yeah uh you know right uh the asset quality might be uh even better you don't have the uh uh construction time then might you know you don't uh those are important caps you might have less less uh capital intensivity and then you can also resell those assets right yeah so okay pick them up for them yeah yeah say right uh this is possibly uh yeah because you know um another part of me right is you know uh are we not oversupply very soon uh because come on I mean in Europe nobody uh uh I I never had a problem with uh data capacity myself but of course um I'm not uh uh but yeah um very interesting yeah there is uh the specific law I I I forget um uh I forget what the law is called but essentially the the premise is is that the more something becomes ubiquitous the higher the demand becomes and so the whole premise behind it is that it's kind of like um it's almost kind of like a the the net the network effect is the more people would have it the more people want it uh so the more people have uh uh uh AI and are able to use it and make something out of it the more people want it so that's kind of the premise behind like this but um I've I've I've I've talked to a lot of industry uh analysts and researchers and just same thing like you know if you remember in uh in 1999 there was a lot of fiber up like fiber optics that was being uh laid down and then for a period of time we had dark fiber right nobody was using it now um if you kind of do the look at the industry signals that doesn't seem to repeat 99 in terms of the dark fiber situation so um it at least the pond the industry researchers saying that this is different that the demand will grow to to you know to satisfy the supply yeah no definitely is um is um um similar right i mean uh but uh who knows right uh right now look the market is um bully right on this uh uh demand is there right that uh we we we uh uh it's a clear thing so yeah look obviously staying in mega trends right specifically where you know markets are unstable is is also is also good I will say so email I'm just kind of going back to um the four jurisdictions that you're in um Saudi Arabia I mean to use your word to it like uh public affairs Saudi Arabia has done a phenomenal job in public affairs over the last uh 10 years or so um but it's uh at least to a western investor that's not the typical geography that would come to mind when when looking for opportunities like what what led you to open future wave read like what led you to look at Saudi Arabia as a as a as an opportunity look um I might have uh a slightly different vision uh being there right uh been there last year uh multiple times and uh that is very vibrant actually also from uh new companies and projects uh of a lot of quality actually a lot of quality many sectors uh I remember meeting some uh SAS companies even right uh that's very good very good um so there is definitely um a market right in terms of um uh tech supply right that is growing but also there is also I would say uh an alignment with the vision of the kingdom 2030 right okay and this is really you really feel it yeah uh all the businesses are really committed to to to to prove that right and so you know it's not only uh it's very welcoming actually right and uh I I think there is a lot of opportunity specifically also for the sectors that we are in right uh that we will be in because you know we are really in the early phases though but um uh agriculture right it's uh it's a need did you know that GCC in general they are importing a lot of food right yeah is present so then the mind needs to have um yeah solution for that yeah right and water is something that we start liking way more and more yeah makes sense yeah please I I was just gonna say I know it'll be coming on to onto time uh ever i mean this is a fascinating conversation i do like to um and and we interviews with a choice of a choice of questions um on one hand i would love um and you can choose which one to answer but um what's the kind of thing that anyone has ever done to for you or what's the best advice uh you have ever received well uh uh i i i receive a lot of advice actually okay and uh yeah and um i also had the opportunity of being mentored also okay or you know as a good example so okay that's the right way thanks yeah so um you know right now i must say the i don't have one in my mind that i want to share right yeah that's okay but uh there was there were many many many uh situation and i promise myself that i will write that to you maybe that would be also useful for class right absolutely no that'd be amazing um can i then just ask you um how did you go about finding your mentor or mentors uh look it it just happened actually right it's not uh you know um and generally uh it's somebody that i you know is teaching me either ready or not right and then okay i want more i want more knowledge right but please stay with me continue the conversation and uh and then obviously you you have to be aligned on a few things right so and in fact i i must say you know some of them are actually my partners today uh amazing is lp is yeah yeah exactly amazing yeah uh uh another example of trust um anything else before we close off the interview look maxim i think you and i we have to take some uh time uh aside for us right yeah let's let's plan that but uh thank you so much for having me at your show and uh yeah looking forward to connect uh thanks a pleasure to have you on