# Top 35 Finance Angel Investors in Middle East in October 2023

## Nevzat Aydın
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 2
- Stages: Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
- Focus: Internet, E-Commerce, Software

Nevzat Aydın is the CEO of Yemeksepeti.com, the first and biggest online food delivery portal in Turkey.Born in 1976 in İstanbul, Nevzat Aydın completed his secondary education at the Bursa Anatolian High School. Following his graduation from Boğaziçi University Department of Computer Engineering, he went to the United States where he receivedhis MBA at the University of San Francisco in Silicon Valley.During his stay in the United States, Aydın followed the latest developments on e-trade before he returned to Turkey in 2000 to launch his project, Yemeksepeti.com. Serving as the CEO of Yemeksepeti.com, Nevzat Aydın introduced a brand new dimension to e-trade in Turkey.In 2007, Yemeksepeti.com was selected the “Endeavor Entreprenur” by Endeavor Turkey. Aydin was also selected the “Most Successful Turkish Young Entrepreneur” by the CNBC-e Business magazine in 2010 for his successful work since the foundation of Yemeksepeti.com.As the founder and CEO of Yemeksepeti.com, which celebrated its 11th anniversary in 2012, he won the first prize in 2011 in the “Male Entrepreneur of the Year” category at the “Businesspeople of the Year” survey conducted by the Ekonomist magazine among nearly 3,000 business people.Aydin is a member of the Young Entrepreneurs Supreme Board of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey, and a founding member of Galata Business Angels.Aydın was one of the 150 entrepreneurs invited from all over the world to the Entrepreneurship Summit held by US President Barack Obama on April 26-27, 2010.He was also among the speakers at the DLD (Digital-Life-Design) Conference, which is deemed as one of the world's most prestigious conferences with its content on innovation and developments in the digital world. He is also an editorial advisor of GQ Turkey, one of the 5 “dragons” of the Dragons’ Den Turkey show, and a Board Member of Trabzonspor sports club.

## Samih Toukan
- Type: Angel
- Location: Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
- Relevant deals: 2
- Stages: Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
- Focus: Social Media, Mobile, Financial Services

In the year 2000 Samih founded and became the CEO of Maktoob.com the world’s first Arabic email and largest Arab Online community. In 2005 Samih cofounded Souq.com, the Arab Worlds largest ecommerce site. In 2009 Maktoob was acquired by Yahoo! and in 2017 Souq.com was acquired by Amazon in the largest technology acquisition deals in the history ofthe region.Samih is currently the Chairman of Jabbar Internet Group (Jabbar.com). Jabbar today is one of the leading investors in Internet and technology companies in the region.

## Firat Isbecer
- Type: Angel
- Location: Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey
- Relevant deals: 2
- Stages: Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
- Focus: Internet, Software, SaaS

Firat Isbecer is an entrepreneur and a seed investor. His first venture Pozitron, a mobile software company focusing on digital banking, commerce and mobile payments, became one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies in Europe with clients across the globe. After multi years of growth and a successful international expansion, Pozitronwas acquired by London-based fin-tech star Monitise plc in 2014.After the acquisition, he joined Monitise and oversaw the company’s regional operations as the MEA Managing Director. Monitise MEA quickly became one of the most profitable business units of Monitise Group. In 2017, Monitise Group was fully acquired by the US-based, Fiserv Inc, one of the world's largest fin-tech companies with more than 50,000 employees.Shortly after the acquisition, he left Fiserv and founded his newest venture, Commencis. Commencis helps leading brands grow and scale in digital, powered by it’s Big Data, Analytics and Cloud products.In September 2019, Commencis expanded to Berlin, Germany by announcing finbyte, a joint-venture in fintech solutions. Besides Commencis, he is also an active seed investor. Member of Galata Business Angels, Turkey’s first angel investor group.After graduating from Robert College in Istanbul, Firat received his Bachelor’s Degree from Galatasaray University, and his Master’s Degree from a joint programme by Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

## Omar Darwazah
- Type: Angel
- Location: New York, New York, United States
- Relevant deals: 2
- Stages: Seed, Pre-Seed, Series B
- Focus: Financial Services, FinTech, Finance

Omar is a Managing Director, General Partner, and CFO at AAF Management Ltd. (AAF), an early-stage venture capital firm he co-founded in 2016. Over the past 5 years, Omar has invested in over 120 venture-backed startups in the US, Europe, and MENA region across a multitude of different sectors alongside over 800 blue-chip venture capital firms,corporate venture arms as well as notable incubators and accelerators. Omar has also deployed capital to 18 emerging managers globally. His fund performance is consistently ranked in the top decile in terms of DPI and TVPI respectively benchmarked on Cambridge Associates’ data on over 1500 US VC Funds. Previously, Omar spent 10 years of his career with OCI N.V. in Cairo and New York focusing on investor relations, strategy, and corporate finance where he worked on over $35 billion worth of corporate transactions. Prior to that, Omar was with Deloitte Tax LLP in Chicago and Deutsche Bank’s Leveraged Finance team in London.Omar also founded and successfully exited his own startup, Premier Foods SAE, which managed two gourmet fast food brands in Egypt. Omar previously advised Hikma Pharmaceuticals’ corporate venture arm Hikma Ventures on its digital healthcare investments Omar is also an angel investor in over 20 tech companies including Andela, Blockstack, BitOasis, Dayra, Freterium, Halan, FiscalNote, Thndr, and Ziina. Omar sits on the Board of the Middle East Investor Relations Association (MEIRA) and the Middle East Venture Capital Association (MEVCA). He is also a mentor to the NYU Steinhardt EdTech Accelerator, an advisor to Yale University’s Center for Digital Health and Innovation, and a judge at the Wharton School’s Venture Lab. In aggregate, Omar has over 16 years of international experience in corporate finance, corporate communications, management consulting, strategy, investor relations, and venture capital.Omar is an avid traveler and has visited 87 countries around the world. He also has an interest in film production and has been an Executive Producer on several short feature films including Baby Mine (2017) and Lab Rat (2018).Omar holds a BA in Economics and Political Science with Honors from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was named as one of Wharton’s 40 under 40 in 2017 and one of the Top 100 the University of Chicago Alumni in Tech in 2021.

## Sevda Taner
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Pre-Seed
- Focus: Finance

Sevda Taner

## Michael Ovitz
- Type: Angel
- Location: Beverly Hills, California, United States
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Series A, Series B, Seed
- Focus: Internet, Software, E-Commerce

Michael Ovitz co-founded Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in 1974 and served as its Chairman until 1995. Over that 20-year period, he grew the agency from a start-up organization to the world’s leading talent agency, representing more than 1,000 of the most notable actors, directors, musicians, screenwriters and other personalities in theentertainment industry including Martin Scorsese, Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Bill Murray, Dustin Hoffman, Steven Spielberg, David Letterman, Meryl Streep, Barbara Streisand, Michael Crichton and Michael Jackson. In his journey from the mailroom to media mogul, Mr. Ovitz launched the most powerful agency in the world (to date), sold three major Hollywood studios, executed all marketing and advertising for The Coca-Cola Company (including creating the Polar Bear Campaign) and was at the forefront of the digital revolution, making alliances with Intel Corporation and other early Silicon Valley companies. Mr. Ovitz also served as President of the Walt Disney Company, from October 1995 to January 1997. In 2010, Mr. Ovitz founded the venture capital fund Broad Beach Ventures LLC, a portfolio of over thirty companies. He has been a senior advisor to Palantir Technologies for over 10 years and has invested in and advised companies from startups to black swans. He was instrumental in the creation of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and frequently consults for Founders Fund, 8VC and many other firms. In 2018, Mr. Ovitz wrote and published his memoir Who Is Michael Ovitz?, which was on the long list for The Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award. Mr. Ovitz is a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles and helped rebuild the UCLA Medical Center in 1997 while serving as its Chairman for over a decade. Mr. Ovitz is also a notable art collector and serves on The Board of Trustees at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

## Orhan Ayanlar
- Type: Angel
- Location: Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed
- Focus: Apps, EdTech, Gaming

Orhan is a Partner of Mediterra and serves on the investment committee. Prior to joining the team in 2011, Orhan was with Bedminster Capital Management, a US$320 million private equity fund focusing on Southeast Europe and Turkey. Prior to joining Bedminster, Orhan worked at private equity and investment banking houses including Is Private Equity,the corporate finance division of Unlu&Co and the debt capital markets division of Bear Stearns, NY.Orhan has completed the Chartered Financial Analyst® Program, has BA in Economics and BSc in Finance from Boston University and is a Robert College graduate.Orhan serves on the Board of Directors of Logo Yazilim, Soke Un, Mobiliz and Glasshouse. He previously served on the Board of Directors of Mikro Odeme.

## Kenges Rakishev
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Series B, Seed
- Focus: Mobile, Internet, Video

Kenes (Kenges) Rakishev - a prominent entrepreneur and investor, and one of the most influential businessmen in Kazakhstan, according to Forbes magazine, Kenes has served in several top positions in both the private and public sector throughout his career and worked as an advisor for the Kazakhstan Interior Ministry and Department of Education.Kenes is a co-founder of the global venture fund Singulariteam. It was his vision to make advancing mobile technology more widely available after he noted a very real desire for currently unobtainable functionality.

## Fahad Hafiz
- Type: Angel
- Location: Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Pre-Seed
- Focus: Finance, Incubators, Hedge Funds

Fahad Hafiz is a prominent serial entrepreneur. Hafiz has a wealth of expertise in a wide range of industries, including finance, oil and gas, travel, automotive, cryptocurrencies, and fintech

## Ihsan Elgin
- Type: Angel
- Location: Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Pre-Seed
- Focus: Blockchain, Gaming, Content

Ihsan Elgin is the Co-Founder of Startups.Watch. He was a Co-Founder and Executive VP, EMEA at ClimateMinder. He attended Koç University.

## n0b0dy.eth Nobody Vault
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed
- Focus: Gaming, Bitcoin, Finance

n0b0dy.eth Nobody Vault

## Barış Conger
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Angel
- Focus: FinTech, Finance, Education

Barış Conger - Advisor @ manibux

## Jonathan Kolber
- Type: Angel
- Location: Kefar Shmaryahu, Tel Aviv, Israel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Series B
- Focus: Social Media, FinTech, Mobile

Jonathan is a private equity veteran with over 20 years of experience in launching international investments, raising capital, achieving exits and actively running public companies. As a former manager of Claridge Israel (1986-1997), the private equity fund grew from $50 to $700 through a series of highly successful exits, including TevaPharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: TEVA), ECI Telecom (NASDAQ: ECIL), Osem (TASE:OSEM) and Optrotech. Jonathan is the former CEO of the billion-dollar company Koor Industries where he steered the holding company through a very complex boom-burst-rebound period (1998-2006). During his tenure at Koor, he weathered the telecom meltdown, implementing a comprehensive restructuring plan that helped rejuvenate Koor Industries, and led a successful exit to IDB, Israel’s largest conglomerate. Jonathan has served as Chairman, CEO and Director in over 40 public and private companies in Israel and North America. He is adept at structuring complex, cross-border and cross industry business and financial transactions with leading investors and bankers, and has an extensive global relationship network.

## Ali Altug KOCA
- Type: Angel
- Location: Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Pre-Seed
- Focus: FinTech, Finance, Financial Services

Ali Altuğ Koca is the co-editor of Webrazzi, a tech blog featuring issues on internet and digital markets, startups, investments, technological developments, and events.
Koca was previously a product manager at Crenvo and finished his higher education at Doğuş Üniversitesi.

## Musaab Hakami
- Type: Angel
- Location: San Francisco, California, United States
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Pre-Seed, Series A
- Focus: Financial Services, FinTech, Software

GP. Ex-Entrepreneur. Ex-Computer Engineer. Angel Investor. BoD. Ex-CCO & CFO @trySaryApp

## Burak Günsev
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Angel
- Focus: FinTech, Finance, Education

Burak Günsev - Advisor @ manibux

## John Nakamura
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Series A
- Focus: SEO, FinTech, Finance

Director at TipRanks.

## Rafi Gidron
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Angel, Series B
- Focus: Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security, Analytics

Rafi Gidron is the Chairman and Co-Founder of Xperiti. He attended Columbia University.

## Yakup Doğan
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Pre-Seed
- Focus: FinTech, Finance, Financial Services

Yakup Doğan

## Roni Michaely
- Type: Angel
- Location: New York, New York, United States
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Series A
- Focus: SEO, Mobile, FinTech

Roni Michaely - Professor of Finance @ Cornell University

## Henrique Dubugras
- Type: Angel
- Location: San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Pre-Seed, Series A
- Focus: Software, Financial Services, SaaS

Henrique Dubugras is Founder and Co-CEO of Brex — the first of its kind corporate card for startups. A Brazilian entrepreneur, Henrique built payments company Pagar.me — the Stripe of Brazil — when he was sixteen years old. In just three years, Pagar.me grew to $1.5 billion in volume of transactions processed. In the fall of 2016, Henrique soldPagar.me and enrolled at Stanford University. After eight months, he left school and founded Brex, which raised $215M in funding across three rounds in its first 22 months and was the fastest U.S. business-to-business company to be valued at over $1bn.

## Boon Hwee Koh
- Type: Angel
- Location: Singapore, Central Region, Singapore
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Series A
- Focus: Software, Financial Services, FinTech

Boon Hwee is the founding partner of Credence and Chairman of the investment committee. Concurrently, Boon Hwee is a member of Agilent Technologies Inc, Chairman of AAC Technologies, Yeo Hiap Seng Limited, and Sunningdale Tech Limited.Boon Hwee began his career in 1977 at Hewlett Packard ("HP") and rose to become its Managing Directorin Singapore, a position he held from 1985 to 1990. Boon Hwee's other previous positions include:Chairman of Singapore Telecom Group ("SingTel") and its predecessor organisations for 17 yearsChairman of Singapore Airlines Limited ("SIA") for 4 yearsChairman of Development Bank of Singapore ("DBS") for 4 yearsDirector on the Board of Temasek Holdings Private Limited for 15 years (Boon Hwee also served as a member of the Executive Committee from January 1997 to September 2010)Chairman of the Wuthelam Group for 10 yearsBoon Hwee was named the Outstanding Manager of the Year in 1991 by Business Times and DHL Worldwide. He was conferred The International Herald Tribune Visionary and Leader Honour in January 2003.Boon Hwee contributes actively to non-profit organisations, and is the current Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Nanyang Technological University and a Director of the Hewlett Foundation in the United States.Boon Hwee obtained his Bachelor's Degree (First Class Honours) in Mechanical Engineering from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London in 1972 and his MBA (Distinction) from the Harvard Business School in 1976.

## Nilüfer Günhan
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Pre-Seed
- Focus: Gaming, FinTech, Finance

Nilüfer Günhan

## Sema Sarsar
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Pre-Seed
- Focus: Finance

Sema Sarsar

## Alexander Schneider
- Type: Angel
- Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Series A, Private Equity
- Focus: Energy, Finance, Robotics

Alex Schneider’s career has been dedicated to corporate finance and principal investing in businesses with under $50 million of revenue. Prior to Clover Capital Partners, Alex was with Keystone Capital, Inc. where he was the longest tenured professional outside of its founders. At Keystone, he helped create a unique and highly successful model toinvesting in the lower middle market. Compared to traditional private equity firms, Keystone is engaged in fewer transactions and allocates more financial and strategic resources to those businesses over longer hold periods. Alex’s direct investment experience spans a wide range of industries, including food manufacturing and packaging, metal fabrication, optical sensors, medical disposables, and professional services. Prior to Keystone, Alex was an investment professional with Goldner Hawn Johnson & Morrison, a middle market private equity fund. Previously, Alex was an investment banker at J.P. Morgan in New York City and Chicago where he worked on mergers and acquisitions and leveraged finance transactions. He earned his undergraduate degree and MBA from Northwestern University.

## Jeff Immelt
- Type: Angel
- Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Series A, Seed, Series B
- Focus: Manufacturing, Software, Family

Immelt has held several global leadership positions since coming to GE in 1982, including roles in GE's Plastics, Appliances, and Healthcare businesses. In 1989 he became an officer of GE and joined the GE Capital Board in 1997.Immelt has been named one of the World's Best CEOs three times by Barron's, and since he began servingas chief executive officer, GE has been named America's Most Admired Company in a poll conducted by Fortunemagazine and one of The World's Most Respected Companies in polls by Barron's and the Financial Times.Immelt was the chair of President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. He is a member of The American Academy of Arts & Sciences.Immelt earned a B.A. degree in applied mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1978 and an M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1982. He and his wife have one daughter.

## Metin Tarakçı
- Type: Angel
- Location: Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Pre-Seed
- Focus: FinTech, Finance, Financial Services

Metin Tarakçı

## Ahmet Bilgen
- Type: Angel
- Location: Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Angel
- Focus: Artificial Intelligence, Education, Sharing Economy

Ahmet Bilgen Turkish Cypriot entrepreneur and angele investor.
He lives in Famagusta-North Cyprus. He finished primary school and high School in Famagusta. He has been a very active person all throughout his life, he received a Black Belt II. Dan in TaeKwon-do, played in the local soccer team while studying at Canbulat high school. Ahmet was alsohelping his family with their farming business by selling the produce to shops, making some money in the meanwhile which he used to buy his first bicycle, first ball or his first pair of sneakers. Ahmet graduated with Bsc in Applied Marth and Computer Science from Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU) in 1993. Between 1993 and 1995 he got his Masters degree in Computer Science. Right after he started his PhD degree in Computer Science but decided to quit academia after his first semester. During his masters and PhD degrees, he took part in developing intelligent user interfaces and inmemory data concepts for mobile devices. After leaving academic life, Ahmet worked in various IT companies for about 2 years and then joined SAP where he had his first professional work experience. Ahmet joined SAP Turkey as the Technology Consultant, and therefore took part in the implementation of more than 100 SAP projects with companies like Yaşar, Koç, Sabancı, Havelsan, Arena etc. as these were the first implementers of SAP ERP in Turkey. During his tenure at SAP, he worked in various roles such as technical consultant, business analyst, project and team manager and architect.
Ahmet, after working at SAP for 2 years and getting enough project experience and honing on his technical skils, he decided to set up FIT “Future Information Technology” Solutions together with 3 of his friends in 1999. By the end of 1999 FIT had already made its first million USD revenue. FIT has integrated Turkey’s most important e-commerce platform named “Arena Computer Supplier Portal” with SAP. This was featuted as an international success story by SAP Inside magazine in 2001. FIT Solutions(lately became Foriba) has a lot of experience from completing many software integration projects. Working with the top 250 companies also gives the company the advantage to have a more extensible, scalable, sustainable and supportable product. These experiences and know-how attained over the years put the company in an advantageous position to achieve end-to-end e-invoicing solutions.
in 2019 Ahmet Bilgen exited from Foriba.
Foriba did:
- Series A With Revo Capital
- Series B With Revo, IFC, Endeavor Catalyst
- Exit

## Yaron Lemelbaum
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Series A, Series B
- Focus: SaaS, FinTech, Artificial Intelligence

Mr. Lemelbaum is an experienced Film Producer. Since 2007 Mr Lemelbaum is also involved in Investment Research and Managment, and serves on the Board of Directors of Israeli listed public companies AMS Electronics and BSR Europe.
Mr. Lemelbaum holds a BA in Computer Science from IDC, and MBA from Columbia University

## Yaron Adler
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Series A
- Focus: Sensor, FinTech, Finance

Yaron Adler - Founder @ We Group LTD

## Ayla Cönger
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed
- Focus: FinTech, Finance, Education

Ayla Cönger

## Ayberk Kuday
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Angel
- Focus: FinTech, Finance, Education

Ayberk Kuday - Advisor @ manibux

## Arman Eker
- Type: Angel
- Location: Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Angel
- Focus: FinTech, Finance, Robotics

Arman Eker - CEO @ Trendbox

## Akif Cahit Erdoğan
- Type: Angel
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Pre-Seed
- Focus: FinTech, Finance, Financial Services

Akif Cahit Erdoğan

## Koray Gultekin Bahar
- Type: Angel
- Location: Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey
- Relevant deals: 1
- Stages: Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
- Focus: Sharing Economy, Software, Audio

Koray Gultekin Bahar is a Co-Founder & CEO at Figopara.Koray attended Eastern Mediterranean University.

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