QiCard — VC & M&A
Venture & M&AVenture investments and M&A for a payments and fintech group: sourcing, underwriting and execution in growth equity and venture across MENA and frontier markets.
- Growth equity
- Venture
- MENA & frontier
VC & M&A · QiCard
· Ex-PE / Private Credit · US$400m+ executed · Dubai
The cycle always turns. Underwriting is what survives it.
Venture and M&A at QiCard, a payments and fintech group, after four years of private equity and private credit investing at Synergy Capital in Dubai — industrials and infrastructure across Asia and MENA, and more than US$400 million of transactions executed. MBA from Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, completed in 2025. Writes regularly on private markets: credit cycles, liquidity, and where the risk is actually sitting.
Now
- Venture and M&A at QiCard, a payments and fintech group — growth equity and venture across MENA and frontier markets.
- Following the private credit cycle closely: BDC non-accruals, troubled-loan ratios and the write-downs that show where underwriting slipped.
- Tracking private capital's liquidity gap — deployment has recovered, exits have not, and a third of PE-backed companies are now held beyond five years.
- Writing regularly on private markets, and open to the argument.
Selected work
Synergy Capital — Private Equity & Private Credit
Private equity & creditFour years investing in industrials and infrastructure across Asia and MENA, from origination through underwriting, structuring and execution. More than US$400 million of transactions executed.
- US$400m+ executed
- Industrials
- Infrastructure
- 2021–2025
Private Credit's First Real Cycle
CommentaryOn private credit entering a genuine credit cycle: BDC non-accruals at 2.8% in Q2, roughly 7.1% of FS KKR's book in troubled loans, and the Medallia write-down as a marker of where underwriting slipped (2026).
- BDCs
- Non-accruals 2.8%
- 2026
H1 2026: Deployment Back, Liquidity Not
CommentaryGlobal M&A of roughly US$2.7 trillion and private equity at about US$583 billion across 5,729 deals in the first half of 2026 — with exits down and 34% of PE-backed companies held for more than five years.
- M&A US$2.7tn
- PE US$583bn
- Exits down
Private Credit as a Systemic-Risk Channel
CommentaryReading the Moody's Analytics and Boston Fed reports alongside the First Brands collapse and Jefferies' exposure: how private credit transmits risk back into the banking system.
- Moody's Analytics
- Boston Fed
- First Brands
Credit Growth, Dry Powder and the Outlook
CommentaryIndia's credit-growth phases from 2002 to 2024; private equity dry powder at US$2.59 trillion in 2023; and the Private Market Outlook 2025.
- India credit 2002–2024
- Dry powder US$2.59tn
- Outlook 2025
Experience
- Present
VC & M&A
QiCard · Dubai, UAE
- Venture and M&A for a payments and fintech group; growth equity and venture across MENA and frontier markets.
- Nov 2021 – Oct 2025
Private Equity & Private Credit
Synergy Capital · Dubai, UAE
- Private equity and private credit investing in industrials and infrastructure across Asia and MENA.
- More than US$400 million of transactions executed.
Education
- 2023 – 2025MBA — two-year programme · Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester
Expertise
Investing
- Growth equity
- Venture capital
- Private equity
- Private credit
- M&A execution
- Underwriting
- Structuring
Markets
- MENA
- Frontier markets
- Asia
- Industrials
- Infrastructure
- Payments & fintech
Analysis & writing
- Credit-cycle analysis
- Fund & deal data
- Portfolio monitoring
- Private-markets commentary
Beyond the deal
- Started the MBA at 27, in a cohort whose median age was closer to 35, on his uncle Tim Grandage's advice: "Go for it."
- Credits his Manchester classmates as much as the curriculum.
- Most at home in markets others find hard to read — MENA and the frontier — and in the parts of a cycle where discipline gets tested.
Contact
Open to conversations with founders, co-investors and operators across MENA and frontier markets — growth equity, venture, private credit and M&A — and to debating where the credit cycle goes next.