️Abu Dhabi as an Ecosystem Builder: Hub71's Role in Accelerating Digital Asset Innovation

[Music] so uh thank you everyone for joining our session today although this to it's it's early in the morning I know you guys are having a busy days during aabi Finance week um so uh it's a great honor for me to moderate this session um and also co-hosting this Venture Park stage today with H 71 so uh let me begin so um so I'd like to start off by asking um your introduction first and what you do uh so Peter you can go first yeah thank you um so my name is Peter abash I had the growth in strategy at HUB 71 um a lot of you know Hub 71 were Abu dhabi's ecosystem uh Builder Tech ecosystem Builder U my role in Hub 71 is defining what does a tech ecosystem mean what initiatives do we need to build and who do we partner with how do we attract the best startups in the world thank you Peter good morning I'm Philip Bazi I'm the CEO and founder of xpto xpto is an Institutional crypto or digital asset platform um we started uh in in in New York moved to Bermuda moving East we're 100 people worldwide uh we basically have solutions for issuers and exchanges and investors and uh we are very excited to be here in Abu Dhabi working with the likes of of hub71 to to enhance the ecosystem and uh and you know grow oursel but also grow the region which I think is an amazing region and so much to offer um thanks for being here thank you for the intro so I forgot to introduce myself so my name is Edward and I work as a chief platform officer here at hash so as Simon mentioned earlier um we've been investing into more than 200 portfolio companies across the globe and myself um I'm in charge of uh managing overall portfolio companies at hash so my next question goes to Peter first um so I believe that in 2023 h71 has established a $2 billion kind of maybe I'll call it fund to accelerate and or boost the uh web3 ecosystem here in Abu Dhabi I'd like to understand more about how that has been going on um and what has been the challenges or what has been doing well I think it's good to go back a bit in history before that initiative to understand how we got to that stage um back in 2019 we were asked by the government to build the Global Tech ecosystem out of Abu Dhabi so we started with that where the initial plan was let's bring startups into abui we had a very um early ecosystem back then let's understand what are the needs of startup ups that come into Abu Dhabi who do they need to meet what infrastructure do they need to be able to succeed so that was the initial plans how we started off fast forward to 2022 2023 we were able to attract more than 200 startups more than 100 partners and we understood what infrastructure is required for these startups um the biggest learning if I had to summarize it in one word is focus and that's what gets us to the next to your original question which is we understood that when you create a focused ecosystem rather than just a genetic ecosystem where random people come in and meet but focus on certain verticals focus on certain themes focus on how to do the right value creation for these startups these startups will be able to succeed and grow as much as possible so that's where we started creating the specialized ecosystem which we call Hub 71 plus just yesterday we launched our uh third one which is Hub 71 plus AI um the one you're referring to is the Hop 71 plus digital assets so um at the point in history it was when the US was literally following all the crypto companies Singapore Hong Kong Switzerland all the web 3 companies did not find their right home they were getting kind of kicked out by Regulators businesses were shut we looked within the island and we saw that adgm has the right um legal framework for digital assets since 2018 so we saw saw that opportunity and created that specialized ecosystem where we got the right Partners if you look at the partners there there's around 150 billion dollars in market cap between all the partners that we have so we got these uh partners and then we started attracting the right startups and that's where Philip and xbto came in through that program um today we have more than 20 25 companies in this specifically that's a that's amazing to hear because uh Simon always told me that you know he visited ABAB about 5 years ago and then during the milkin conference and he visited accidentally visited help somebody on office and there were quite empty no one was actually there but now you know starting from like last year to this year as you said a lot of you know startups are here so I see you know Abu Dhabi as a very Dynamic from Hub Sone efforts as well as adgm so that's we good to hear so my next question goes to Phil so I know that the uh xbto offers a a very comprehensive uh you know platform digital asset platform for investment custody service and so on and I know that you have been partnering with hub71 um since then so um I'd like to understand more about uh what kind of supports you actually got from either Peter or hub71 or Al DAV uh adgm so would you please elaborate more on that sure so so XP started 10 years ago um so we've been in in in crypto for for a long time we understand um the ecosystem we understand the technology we understand the players um but we were based in uh in a place where it was not necessarily very forward-looking in terms of regulatory Clarity so we were looking for for places to grow right and we started in Bermuda which gave us very good Clarity and and we're you know Bermuda first uh we were we're regulated first in Bermuda but we're looking to to be regulated here uh in Abu Dhabi and because we don't know the uh we know the space we know the ecosystem but we don't know uh the region and to get really um somewhere um in the region you really have to have partners and and hub 71 was that partner it was a partner that that had the means and the resolve and uh and the clarity of of strategy to help us and we could also bring our expertise our knowledge our 10 years of of of of crypto and and understanding of of um of the technology here so we uh got our IPA here in um in July um I think we we opened up the office with your help so there was a lot of support um infrastructure support um you know collaboration with the regulator ad gems great um and we are just looking to ramp up and scale up uh with the help of of hubs 71 and all of the partners that we've been introduced to by yourselves um and um and it's you know it's been it's been a really good uh good experience and we we hope to be able to really accelerate this going into what I think is a mega cycle next year uh with the help of of of other countries that are joining in uh obviously the US is is kind of shifting a little bit uh its strategy I think that's going to be a good thing for everyone not not only for for the US um so so yeah so I'm very excited to be here and um yeah looking forward to continue and working with uh with Peter and the team at top 71 you've been amaz amazing thank you so um uh my next question is related to Abu Dhabi Tech ecosystem itself so what I found really fascinating about Abu Dhabi is that whenever I met either Peter or people from government or adim they all aligned with web 3 they wanted to go forward um with web3 technology and they want to implement this new Innovative stuff into the region so having said that my next question is what do you think that what actually makes ababi so attractive so that you guys can bring like prominent Builders and Founders like Phil to this region so it's it's not just web3 when we look at what Abu Dhabi is interested in it's innovation in general um web 3 is completely and referring to blockchain specifically completely a new technology which is allowing us to do what we already do faster more transparent decentralized Etc so um any new technology and we have more than 20 different sectors in our portfolio we have uh more than three specialized hubs that we've launched whenever we see an opportunity of a new innovation and new disruptive technology coming out we want to jump on it and we want to be the playground for these startups to uh be able to develop that Innovation um we always use the word and there's a in inside joke within our team of ecosystem can you do a talk can you do a presentation without saying the word ecosystem it's impossible because we are an ecosystem and to be able to allow people like Phil to allow other startups our 300 different startups to succeed you need that ecosystem where the startup is the customer and you are that product developer our product is AB our product is that ecosystem that we're building from Abu Dhabi and the only way to build the right infrastructure is to look at the customer and say what is it that you need so that's why when we initially launched the first thing we did was put some incentives get startups in spent a year just figuring out what we're doing with these startups and then build that ecosystem so um what attracts people is there's this single Island that you come work play eat do whatever you want and everyone you need to meet is between four or five buildings um that's the beauty of this ecosystem we've traveled a lot to see different places from Miami to SF to Hong Kong to different uh Tech hubs around the world and you go in and you need to know people who know people who know people to get to where you want to get to when you come here you just do one meeting and from that meeting you just open the next door in the next door because everyone's working towards the same vision um the UAE leadership has always been Visionary in terms of let's be number one with everything let's be the fastest the biggest so everyone coming into this country is working towards One Direction and that's the ecosystem that that I'm referring to great yeah Phil um you know I I think uh ABAB has got a lot going for it um it's at the intersection of of the Middle East and Asia in Africa I think uh we're you know we we're very excited to be here uh because I think it's it it is the place that has a lot of momentum right now it is the capital of capital uh I think that's just not a saying it's it's very true I mean I spent here about a week and it's incredible the amount of connections I just made and the amount of interest there is in in in digital asset the alignment here to your point earlier is incredible meaning if there is a decision up top to do something you can take it to the bank literally and so that permeates down um to everyone to the to the startup to the scale up like ourselves we're growing we're not quite the startup we're a little bit bigger than a startup but we participate and we benefit from all this Clarity and this resolve and you look at um this conference for example it's it's amazing how incredibly well organized and and you can tell the resources that are being put to work is incredible so um I'm you know we're very committed to region and um know we hope we we can continue to to to be here for a very long time thank you I mean I couldn't agree with you guys anymore so I think since we are running out of our time um I have my last question for uh today so I think um uh what's so what I want to see um in ABD Dhabi what I expect in web 3 um from today to 5 years later in Abu Dhabi is the uh the real adaption of blockchain Technology um in Abu Dhabi so in order to do that um Peter as you know we are doing a crypto payment POC at our booth right now so trying to actually implement this crypto payment here in ABD Dhabi so that's something that I really like to see uh happening in ABD Dhabi within five or 10 years so what are other kind of um Tech Trends or innov ative stuff that you guys are expecting to see in Abu Dhabi within the next 3 to 5 years um I think there's so much going on in in in in blockchain but there's also so much going on in Ai and Quantum Computing I mean all of these things are going to come together and uh and this is I'm sure Abu Dhabi will will will benefit greatly from all these Technologies um we're certainly looking at things like tokenization I think putting everything on the blockchain is going to be a big thing payments will eventually obviously migrate to to blockchain based payments um I'm excited to see all I think it's a great place to to be testing kind of these things and um where we can participate we will certainly participate and we'll try to take advantage of all these these sort of all these Technologies and make um you know Finance is what we're like sort of trying to fix a better place and for for the sake of time I'll just say all the above everything that philli said but I think one point I'd like to add is to get adoption you need education um and I think every single one of us in this room every single one of us in in on this island are playing a role in educating the consumers through your POC on the payment educating the corporates educating the regulator and investor and as that education Journey becomes stronger adoption will increase in Abu Dhabi and in the world as well thank you gentlemen so I'll be moving out to alabi starting from next year as well as I've told you guys uh in the backstage so hopefully I would like to see more kind of synergy and collaboration with you guys down the road in Abu Dhabi uh thank you very much thank thank you thank you everyone thank you [Music]