Meet Forbes 30 Under 30 Standout, serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist investor, Abbas Kazmi in person or virtually! The in person meeting will take place in London, UK or Dubai, UAE depending on where Abbas Kazmi is at the scheduled time of the meeting.
Abbas Kazmi is a multi award-winning serial entrepreneur and investor who founded his first of several successful companies at 16. Since tasting success from a young age, Abbas has been behind many exciting businesses, initiatives and organizations and has been chosen as a Forbes 30Under30 Standout, as a Maserati 100, as one of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards Entrepreneurs' Champions of the Year, and as one of Startups UK’s Young Entrepreneurs of the Year and Business Growth Enablers of the Year. Abbas has also been recognized as a ‘Young Gun’ and one of the top UK entrepreneurs under 35 by Startups UK, as one of the Top 5 inspirational UK entrepreneurs to look out for by Tech City News and has been invited to MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 community where he also acts as an ambassador and judge. Recently he was named as one of the Service Industries Entrepreneurs of the Year in the Great British Entrepreneur Awards and as one of the Mobile & Emerging Technologies StartUp Founders of the Year in the StartUp Awards National Series, to name just a few amongst many other awards.
Abbas has been appointed as a United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Fellow, focusing on youth entrepreneurship and empowerment in MENA, and as a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. Ex-BlackRock working across EMEA and the US, Abbas co-founded both the Oxford Accelerator and VC fund Collegiate Capital, and an Investment Committee member of, advisor to and LP investor in several funds in Europe including BlackWood Ventures where he is the lead dealmaker and CEO of their platform.
Recently he was recognized and selected by the UAE's Deputy Prime Minister, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, as an Arab Youth Pioneer, and tasked with focusing on solutions for issues such as youth unemployment. He is very passionate about web 3.0, the metaverse and blockchain technology and has been in the space since 2014, investing in and building many exciting projects. He advises the UK Government as a co-founding Advisory Board Member of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for the Metaverse and Web 3.0. He is also a Helena Group Fellow in the same class as Snap Inc CEO Evan Spiegel and was appointed as one of the youngest fellows at the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce: FRSA.
Abbas sits on the boards of several organizations and companies including FINGREEN AI (an ESG Data, Reporting and Monitoring solution for private markets) and Prospect 100 (co-creation platform focused on democratizing access for Gen Z talent to companies globally). Abbas’ favorite investment so far is in mental health unicorn Spring Health where he single handedly led and managed the first institutional external to Yale investment into this female led Yale spinout founded by three people of color. The company has gone on to raise c.$365m including from Tiger Global and Northzone and is valued at over $2.5bn. The stake is currently worth over 100x based on the last secondary offer. Abbas has extensive work experience both in the startup-space and commercial world, including at the financial powerhouses such as BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and many others across finance, consulting, commodities, private equity and venture capital. He enjoys mentoring budding entrepreneurs and financiers and supporting the next generation of future leaders.
An academic scholar both at Westminster School and Oxford University and a VC Fellow at London Business School’s Newton Venture Program, Abbas is Chairman of the illustrious Oxford Guild, which he has built into the largest university society in the world and where he has hosted a wide range of high profile guests from multiple major CEOs and Nobel Prize winners, to the likes of Kanye West, Woody Harrelson, Malala and many more. He is also co-founder of the All In startup diversity pledge, the Global Fintech & Blockchain Conference, Europe2SiliconValley Trip and the Spirited Network Covid-19 relief non-profit platform. Abbas also has interests in the film industry, co-producing four films so far including alongside the likes of Idris Elba. Passionate about intercultural relations he is cofounder of the Golden Age Network, seeking to build a brighter future for the MENA+ region, and is an inaugural Fellow at ROPES (Regional Organization for Peace, Economics and Security), focusing on the Israel - Palestine peace process. He regularly judges leading startup competitions such as MIT Innovators Under 35 and speaks at top universities and conferences globally such as the World Economic Forum Annual Summit at Davos, Forbes 30Under30 Summit, Milken Institute MENA Summit and many more.