June 7, 2026

The Arzan founder mafia built 18 new tech startups

Hope you had a restful Eid break. For those of us who stayed in Kuwait and avoided flight cancellations (which turned out to be most of us), the holiday became a blur of family gatherings, chalet/beach time, cinema trips, horse-riding, one memorable day of 51°C (winds included at no extra charge), empty Kuwait City streets, and surprisingly pleasant evenings by the seaside… spending the break at home was a really good decision after all.

Now – onto today’s theme.

Last month’s Citizens of Silicon Valley turned out to be a very popular edition, so I decided to raise the stakes and shine the spotlight on a different network: the Arzan VC Founder Mafia.

(Not the kind that asks for protection money. Yet.)

Some of the founders we backed didn’t stop at one company. Because great founders don’t disappear.  

10 >>> 18

The founders behind 10 Arzan VC-backed companies went on to build 18 new tech startups after acquisitions, acquihires, or closures. In terms of funding, at least 10 of them raised funds (public announcements), totaling $77+ million.

The most prolific serial entrepreneurs are Dalooni’s Mustafa Marhama (5 new tech startups) and Husain Haji (2).

2 foodies: Zeid Husban and foodtech seem to be in a long-term relationship. ;) Prior to POSRocket (acquired by Foodics), Zeid founded and exited ifood.jo, an online food ordering website & mobile application, which was acquired by Delivery Hero in 2016 and rebranded to Talabat in 2017. His latest venture SPICE is – once again – in the territory of food. And iKcon’s Khalid Baareh can’t seem to stay away either; first cloud kitchens, now a marketplace for meal plan subscriptions.If we expand the analysis beyond strictly tech startups, some “I-took-off-my-tech-founder-hat” journeys emerge: Following FlexxPay, co-founder Michael Trüschler relocated to Germany and launched 51Nord, an angel investment vehicle, and Sandberg Capital Management, an advisory firm serving German expatriates globally.

Likewise, the story of Cartlow did not end with its acquisition by Basatne. Co-founder Mohammed Sleiman went on to become CEO of Basatne's MENA operations and CEO of ORBT, a digital payouts platform launched by the group, while his fellow co-founder Anas Alkhaldi founded an accounting firm Numeria.

If there is a pattern here, it’s that entrepreneurial energy is remarkably bad at staying retired. Perhaps founder recycling is a more interesting metric than exits.

TL;DR

Some founders exit. Some founders get acquired. Some founders shut down their companies. And then some go right back and start another one. Founders behind 10 Arzan VC-backed companies went on to build 18 additional tech startups, with at least 10 raising more than $77 million in publicly announced funding. Turns out the Arzan Founder Mafia has been busier than we thought. If there is a pattern here, it's that entrepreneurial energy is remarkably bad at staying retired.

Did you know that Arzan VC is now a GCC-India investor with a growing India allocation and a Managing Partner named Nawaf AlHomaizi?

We have never invested in India. I don’t know a Nawaf AlHomaizi and the email certainly doesn’t work.But hey, who verifies data these days when it’s easier than ever before? ;)

See you in June,
Hasan

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