Aya Darwazeh

AI ships product daily, while GTM tools still crawl. Thrilled to partner with Zach Vidibor, Julian Tempelsman, and the Octave team as they lay the foundations of the Modern GTM stack. AI is transforming the way we work, but the change is not happening all at once, so we can't reap the full benefits of it end-to-end. Octave ensures that GTM teams can keep up with the cadence of the AI-native organization. What do I mean by this? 1/ AI pushes product releases daily. Messaging must iterate at the same cadence. 2/ Competition resets overnight. Early traction fades fast unless users are locked in by retention value that others can't replicate. 3/ Systems of record log data but can’t reason. They lack the full context a true engine requires. 4/ AI is collapsing org walls. Product ↔ engineering, sales ↔ marketing. Our tools must mirror this reality. Octave bundles every GTM signal, reasons across it, and serves the right story to the right buyer exactly when it matters. LFG!!

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Had a great time at DC Startup & Tech Week (Formerly DC Startup Week) moderating a panel with Scott Christensen (Chesapeake Bay Seed Capital Fund (CBSCF) , Faith Davis (Exelon) and Bill McNulty (NextEra Energy Investments), convened by the great C'pher Gresham. Here's a quick recap: 1) The panelists were phenomenal - a mixture of corporate, state and foundation-backed VC's all focusing on climate. They're actively funding companies across a range of sectors - e.g. nature-based solutions, energy + AI, water, etc. Point being, we were lucky to have experts with such broad purviews. 2) The current climate could be pushing at least some climate VC's to focus on software and move away from hardware, at least temporarily. This type of capital may indeed just be better suited for software companies at this juncture. It also reflects the fact that certain segments of the climate-tech market are just more mature than others - e.g. software performs best once the hardware and the business case around it are solid, then it becomes and optimization and efficiency game. 3) Founders need to target "must-solve" climate problems from the investor lens. In other words, yes there's a sea of climate challenges where startups can be additive. However, in this environment, few of these areas are attracting meaningful capital. There's nothing wrong with tackling problem areas that are under-invested, we need this in spades. However, for those trying to get capital in the door, realize the constraints that come with targeting problems that investors just aren't prioritizing. 4) Look to funders overseas. The EU, where so much climate finance, policy and general expertise has come from, could be playing a much more important role. I'd also argue that Gulf countries like KSA and UAE are going to be critical here too, not to mention China, of course. 5) We need mentoring and coaching to be at an all-time high. With so much uncertainty, networks/communities where both founders and investors can learn from/lean on each other have never been more important. The panel/audience was a nice microcosm of the types of support networks we need to be actively building. Big thanks again to C'pher, Faith, Scott and Bill, as well as the whole DC Startup + Tech Week team. Til next year!

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Dr. Bilal Baloch explains why narrative-first founders consistently win in MENA and beyond. Strong storytelling isn’t hype - it’s a signal of conviction, clarity, and a team’s ability to execute when the idea is unproven. For early-stage investors, belief in the vision often matters as much as the numbers.   Watch the full episode with Dr. Bilal Baloch, MENA’s top VC on Breaking Down Barriers - Leadership podcast here: https://lnkd.in/eiDK4nVe   Hosted by Ricci Putnam and powered by Salt.   #storytelling #narrativestructure #business #mena 

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Grateful for the opportunity to join the Capital stage at Money20/20 Middle East alongside Basil M. (Key Capital) and Kyane Kassiri (RallyCap VC) for a timely discussion on the role of secondaries. We unpacked: • Why secondaries are becoming mainstream in venture – from liquidity gaps in emerging markets to institutional appetite globally. • The benefits: unlocking liquidity for founders & early backers, improving morale, recycling capital, and giving institutions later-stage access. • The risks: mispricing, signaling effects, conflicts of interest, and cap table distortions if not structured carefully. 🌍 My big takeaway: secondaries are no longer niche—they’re becoming a core part of how ecosystems mature, from Silicon Valley to MENA. The challenge (and opportunity) is to make sure they are done responsibly, balancing short-term liquidity with long-term value creation and ensuring appropriate access to information both sides of the transaction. Big thanks to the Money20/20 team for curating an important conversation and to my co-panelists for the insights. 🙏 #Money2020 #VentureCapital #Secondaries #PrivateMarkets #StrategicInvesting Money20/20 Middle East #CitiSPRINT

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Very informative Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund Summit last week. I focused my time on sessions related to data center growth since this is a priority area for Buoyant Ventures where Laura Katzman (Dyer) has been leading our research. Grateful to the CIF team for convening such a unique group of investors, startups, hyperscalers, data center operators and other partners. My takeaways: • Everyone is focused on building new data centers as fast as possible. Everyone acknowledges the trade-offs between speed, reliability, cost and sustainability, but it's still not clear where the compromise will come from • Making the most of the power we already have seems like the only tangible short-term lever. Several speakers pointed to VPPs as what can actually move the needle in the next 12 months. Buoyant is also looking at flexibility solutions behind-the-meter • Communities where data centers are sited often see them as the villain. There’s real potential for shared benefits, but only if local stakeholders are genuinely included early and often • There’s no doubt that hunger for data center growth has made sustainability goals harder to meet (“the moon moved further”). But the potential to help scale clean energy is there, demonstrated by Microsoft itself, which last year added 19GW of clean power for a total of 34GW Thank you Brandon Middaugh, Erika Basham, James Lockyer and Taylor Brugh!

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