Noor Sweid
The Pioneer
The frontier and an appetite for the unknown, goes first.
Noor Sweid emerges in this interview as a Pioneer: someone who entered largely unmapped territory and built the infrastructure for others to follow. She founded Global Ventures in 2018 when the entire MENA region attracted only $400 million in venture funding annually, roughly one Series C round. Sweid describes constructing original research frameworks, publishing the region's first fintech and health tech papers, and developing a proprietary seven-layer partner framework to guide founders. Her portfolio construction deliberately blends PE discipline with venture upside, a model she invented to fit a market with no legacy incumbents. She identifies herself as the only Arab woman running a VC firm, not as a grievance but as context for why she pioneered a more disciplined, influence-driven approach to minority investing. Her leadership is defined by creating the conditions for an ecosystem that did not yet exist.
“When I first started the firm seven years ago, MENA as a whole had $400 million of venture funding that year. All of MENA, all 450 million people, had $400 million, which is back then like one Series C round.”
“Venture is a game of influence, not power. You'll never have enough votes. You'll never have enough power. It's really about making sure that you're guiding the journey more than instructing the journey.”
“If you're not selling, you're buying. So we had one unicorn that is no longer a unicorn, but we exited at that stage. We generated 14x.”
Money Maze Podcast: “Beyond the Silk Roads: Middle Eastern Venture Investing - With Noor Sweid, Founder and Managing Partner of Global Ventures”
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