Note sull'episodio
In this episode of WHV Insider, Steve Moore is joined by Kamyaar Butt, Investment Lead at Arāya Ventures, for a Meet the Investor conversation on what it actually takes to raise capital, and build conviction, across the UK, US and GCC.
Kamyaar's path into venture is anything but conventional: from artist and event management in California, through fintech at Square, to building a platform with clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson that scaled to 200,000 users, before moving into venture capital itself. That breadth of operating experience now shapes how she evaluates founders at Arāya Ventures, a fund that has grown in under three years from a UK pre-seed vehicle, the Super Angel Fund, into a multi-fund platform spanning the UK, GCC, Europe and Asia, with roughly 70% of its portfolio built around AI.
One of the most useful parts of the conversation is what Kamyaar looks for once the pitch is over. Founders who can't recite their CAC or churn without opening a spreadsheet are a red flag. So is a pitch built entirely on momentum rather than an honest account of what isn't working yet. In a region where, as Kamyaar puts it, failure is still culturally looked down upon rather than treated as data, she argues the ecosystem matures fastest when founders are rewarded for showing their scars, not just their wins.
That theme connects to a wider point about market entry: the GCC remains a relationship-first economy, and building trust takes face time, not just a strong deck. Kamyaar is candid too about the effect of the recent regional conflict on sentiment and fundraising activity, and why she still sees the underlying growth story as intact, pointing to Andreessen Horowitz's first Saudi investment closing mid-conflict as a signal that conviction in the market hasn't wavered.
For founders and investors weighing where health tech and venture capital in the GCC are heading, Kamyaar makes the case that Saudi Arabia — still a G20 rather than G7 market, and still maturing — is on track to become a genuine health tech hub for the wider Middle East and North Africa over the next decade, in the same way Silicon Valley became synonymous with AI.
In this episode, we cover:
- Kamyaar's path from artist management and fintech to venture capital, via a platform built with Jordan Peterson
- How Arāya Ventures has scaled from a UK pre-seed fund into a UK–GCC–Europe–Asia platform in under three years
- Why "distribution channels and scars in founders" matter more than the product itself in an AI-native world
- The most common mistake founders make when pitching their unit economics
- Why failure needs to be normalised, not hidden, for the GCC startup ecosystem to mature
- How relationship-building in the Middle East differs fundamentally from the US or Western Europe
- The real impact of the recent regional conflict on founder sentiment and fundraising activity
- Where the tangible investment gaps sit today: women's health, palliative and older-age care, and the seed-to-Series-A funding gap
- Why Saudi Arabia and the UAE can be a launchpad into Africa and Asia, not just a market in their own right
- Kamyaar's 10-year outlook for Saudi Arabia as a health tech hub for the Middle East and North Africa
- Arāya Ventures' plans to open a Saudi office in Q4 and deepen its presence on the ground
For anyone building or investing across Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC, this episode is a grounded look at how a hands-on investor thinks about conviction, timing and trust, and why the founders who show their scars are often the ones worth backing.
Find Kamyaar Butt and Arāya Ventures at araya.ventures or on LinkedIn.