Ryaan Sharif

Author Archives: Ryaan Sharif

Ryaan Sharif is a BA (Econ) graduate, majoring in finance, from the University of Manchester. Upon graduating, Ryaan worked for EY in the Transaction Advisory Department, where he worked on numerous engagements with multinational firms in developing business plans, due diligence, feasibilities and valuations.

Ryaan then went on to become a Senior Manager at the Economic Development Board of Bahrain, where he personally account managed and attracted US$300 million in foreign direct investment, persuading the likes of BAE Systems, CIMC, Ariston Thermo, Mondelez (Expansion), Aleastur and SMS Meer to invest and establish facilities in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

In early 2018, Ryaan was appointed as the Managing Director of Flat6Labs Bahrain, the MENA region's largest regional seed stage financier and accelerator program. Under Ryaan’s stewardship, Flat6Labs invested in 38 portfolio companies in Bahrain of which 65% of the portfolio managed to achieve follow-on-funding in just over one year of operating.

In 2019, Ryaan went on to join Batelco where he headed the B2C Investments in the Digital Development Department, that was recently established within Bahrain’s leading telecom operator. Batelco was mandated to deploy US$500 million, as a strategic investor, into high growth digital companies in the form of potential majority equity investments, joint ventures and regional partnerships across the verticals that includes Consumer, Enterprise, Government and Fintech.

In 2021, Ryaan rejoined Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi, which has launched a US$32 million fund — in partnership with ADQ, the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi — that will aim at initially investing in 60 startups. Flat6Labs UAE is into its fourth cycle and has now completed 39 investments in just under two years.
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