35+ Corporates and Investors Meet Flat6Labs Beirut’s Startups - Flat6Labs

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35+ Corporates and Investors Meet Flat6Labs Beirut’s Startups Beirut, Lebanon

Event Starts: Thursday, 03 Oct 2019, 12:00 Program Ends:Thursday, 03 Oct 2019, 12:00

On Friday, September 20th, 2019, Flat6Labs Beirut held its first Business Networking Event at Beirut Digital District 1280. The purpose of this event was to allow international and local corporations to meet Flat6Labs Beirut’s both current and alumni startups on one-on-one speed-dates in order to discuss potential collaborative partnerships and/or investments.

20 of our startups had the chance to meet with 39 companies from various industries; ranging from banks, telecom, e-commerce, NGOs and a lot more. In addition, the Ministry of Environment sent a representative as well to encourage the startups and develop stronger bonds with the innovative founders.

The event was split into three sessions of 90 minutes each, where each corporate had an assigned table, and the startups would meet with a new corporate every 15 minutes in a speed-dating format.

Fawzi Rahal, Flat6Labs Beirut’s Managing Director, introduced the 3 sessions with a brief presentation about Flat6Labs; which gave a more in-depth understanding to the corporates about its operations, regional offices, funds and activities.

An intriguing aspect of the nature of the event was when the startups were compelled to ponder about creative ways in which they could target their products and services to cater to companies they haven’t contemplated of collaborating with previously. During the event, things took an interesting turn and went beyond only forming partnerships when corporates shared business tips with the founders on a more personal level. For instance, the founder of the direct to consumer startup in the personalized cosmetics industry, Mounira Al Halabi, CEO of Joona, received tips on how to handle customer service and how to be an affirmative leader.

Flat6Labs team had received a lot of positive feedback from the founders; such as Naim Zard, CEO of Zima stating “I had such a fruitful experience. Various opportunities had opened up to me; for example, The Smallville Hotel wants to pilot our product in the future. Also, I got to meet a potential investor from BlomInvest.”

Mohamad Fakhreddine, CEO of Clean2O, was delighted he had the chance to speak and share Clean2O’s proposed solutions in improving water quality in Beirut with Richard Hanna, the representative of the Minister of Environment; it would have been difficult to be acquainted with him otherwise.

The corporates were very positive about the event as well, “The even was very organized, I really enjoyed it! There are a few companies I would like to meet again. I loved the ambience” said Maya Ziadeh, Investment Officer at Merit corporation — CMA CGM. Yusr Sabra, Managing Partner at Wakilni, and Johnny Abi Allam, Digital Marketing Manager at HiCart, agreed that they “found the matching better than expected, and the whole process was seamless and enjoyable; which led them to affirm that they would participate again and recommend their acquaintances to participate next time as well”.

Fady Azzy, Head of Retail Business Development at BLOM Bank also shared Yusr’s sentiment and stated that “Mostly, all aspects of the event were great and exceeded my expectations; hopefully, I will be able to participate next time.”

Business cards were exchanged, and the corporates were amped to know that they are invited to Flat6Labs Beirut’s Fourth Demo Day on October 10th to see our startups pitching their startups onstage, and learn more about any developments they’ve made since their meeting at the event.

You can apply for Flat6Labs Beirut’s upcoming cycle here!

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