Next month I will be heading to Beirut to source deals for investment partners. I have goals on two levels; professional and personal.
My professional goal is to source deals for my investment partners, First Light Ventures and New World Innovation.
My personal goal is to prove that Lebanon is a place of economic strength, resilience, and ultimately has a lot more to offer than is portrayed in the lame stream media.
We are currently exploring a partnership with Berytech, an incubator and accelerator in Beirut. Things look promising as Berytech has been around for over 10 years, and has incubated and invested in some very successful enterprises.
A huge question I have, is what exactly the enterprises will look like. I am sourcing deals based on my investors’ interests, which center around positive social impact. In Lebanon, it is unclear what the enterprises will look like and what social impact may be in the context of political instability, unemployment, and intermittent violence. The wise thing to do is to hold off pre-conceived notions of what I might define as social impact, and see what is happening when I get there. I certainly will be looking to take enterprises on the cusp of ‘investability’ towards scalability, and maybe I can do the same for entrepreneurs that have not more than loosely defined their social impact oriented goals.