Chris Haunschild — Full Transcript

Oh no, uh oh, you cut me off after 58 minutes, oh no. Okay, have a good session. Thank you. Thank you very much. So, welcome to Venture Protocol, a podcast series where I talk with visionary people about the protocols behind winning startups, venture funds, family offices. and today we have a guest just like this so welcome Chris Haunschild welcome Chris Haunschild my name is Anastasia Lukach I'm a FinTech executive and I've been in the industry for 10 years now I focus on working with family offices and other ways different capital features and I have strong opinions around venture capital M&A private equity markets here in the UAE and globally so I'm very glad to have you on Chris is an

international US based M&A attorney who has worked on over a billion dollars for billion hundred oh I'm sorry hundred billion two extra zeros The zeros are important in finance, as you know better than I do. Very true. So Chris has worked on over $100 billion of financing and M&A deals throughout his career. And welcome to the show. Thank you, Anastasia. Really pleased to be here. This is an interesting topic that I think we can cover a lot of information that I think will be relevant to it. just as you work with family offices companies looking for funding and a different place in their growth journey so honored to be here thank you so let me start with your take on AI I mean let's be honest it is everywhere you are very closely connected to private equity and this is the sector's it is almost as the companies are very affected with a I these days so there's two aspects the

The first one is actual firms that you might be working with utilizing AI in order to automate workflows and therefore increase their valuation during two better multiples, better profit rates and second AI in consulting industry itself. So let's start with the first one. So you know, as you know, AI is being utilized on an increasing basis by people, whether it's their core technology or just people with you know routine office tasks using chat GBT, rock and other other platforms just to shortcut what they might be otherwise doing. There are opportunities I think to streamline and allow allow everyone to sort of move up market if you will and focus on more valuable tasks. I'm certainly working with a number of tech companies that are are in their interfaces utilize AI.

I'm working with the medical technology company, it's really exciting, where it's allowing them to do diagnose disease on a very rapid basis. They're essentially, they're treating, they have a healthcare kiosk where they're treating millions of patients in rural India helping diagnose diseases. So they take samples, run blood samples through a machine, and then they use AI to rapidly identify what the problem might be with the patient. So I see AI used a lot like that. And then shifting gears, I have a friend that runs several hundred million dollars worth of commercial real estate properties, and her policy is we don't leave space to AI companies because they might not be around in a couple of years to pay their rent. So opinions differ on the subject of AI. Do you see how in private equity, particularly in mergers and acquisitions and companies going public, where the merge of capital is happening, how AI is increasing the efficiency?

Yes, I have worked with a number of family offices, portfolio managers, investors in the private equity space, and among the things they do, I have some friends who, they spend their weekends reviewing pitch decks that they get and they have AI protocols that they utilize where they essentially feed in some pitch deck that somebody's lovingly prepared with all sorts of analysis and compelling diagrams and maybe some beautiful photos. They run it through an AI model and then the AI comes out with is it investable at all? Is this C? Is it series A? At what point in the journey is this company truly on to align whether where the company thinks they are is actually consistent with where they in fact are in their journey and it just simplifies the process and of course with anything with ai right you've got to do your own you've got to reach your own final conclusions but very helpful process for private equity acquisitions one of the trends

that I'm noticing recently is private equity firms, they want for companies they're acquiring to already have some AI workflows implemented, or they're making the acquisitions with the idea that they would implement AI and make, in this way, make the business more efficient. Is this something that you're seeing in your practice? Maybe give us some examples. Well, I think I'm seeing that in a lot of cases where some companies that are in more traditional industries that don't have, working with one large company that's acquiring hundreds of millions of dollars with companies in some traditional industries like construction adjacent businesses where they don't have technology, it's all been manual processes and they're looking at opportunities to refine, streamline things as otherwise kind of routine perhaps is the bidding process but really be more specific about how they can bid on projects as well as automate things achieve the efficiencies of scale that ai gives

people so there's there's a lot there and you know it's interesting what you what you said so some companies investors like to see ai deployed but others might want to see sort of a diamond in the rough where they have old old out outmoded practices but an otherwise solid business where that can be an easy win to enhance efficiencies and increase the value of the enterprise. So it's kind of all over the place. That's a very interesting point. It just shows that sometimes taking contrarian bets can pay off. Exactly. Chris, I would love to learn more about what you're passionate about these days. What are you working on? So I work on a number of cross-border transactions. My typical deal is a cross-border transaction where there's often a U.S. company involved. So a U.S. company acquiring an international company or an international company maybe acquiring some more significant international company moving into the U.S. market perhaps through acquisition rather than just starting an operation from scratch on the ground.

There are often different considerations of course. There's the tax law, there's structural efficiency, and then just the vagaries of M&A where you're looking for quality candidates. That said, often the transactions I'm involved with, I encounter companies at different stages of their growth journey. and oftentimes there's a public company involved where either there's a public acquirer or a public company is merging into another company through perhaps a reverse merger. These SPAC transactions are another way to help the enterprise at the consummation of the transaction achieve liquidity often in the New York Stock Exchange or NYSE. And judging from the fact that in the last year you started frequenting the Gulf region, Emirates and Saudi Arabia, Qatar if I'm not mistaken, you are working closely with the businesses here or the capital that's located here in the region?

So it's a little bit of both. There's a lot of businesses. There are businesses here, quality businesses that we're working on core deals here. They have significant operations in the U.S. so I'm helping with that. We've got businesses that are migrating to the UAE for real estate and other investment opportunities that they see on the ground here because it's such a dynamic, thriving place. And also, of course, everyone would love to tap into the capital that is here in the UAE because not only is it extensive and savvy, but decisions are made quickly here. And I think that's one thing that I'm really attracted to about coming to Dubai and Abu Dhabi is how seamless things move and people make decisions and they execute. And I just love that because that's really kind of fundamental to how I operate. What an interesting point. One thing I hear from dealmakers in the region, especially foreign ones, is that relationships are extremely important in UAE or other neighboring countries.

Maybe even more so than in Asia. And Asia is known for this relationship and friendship first culture. So this is something I've encountered as well. But it seems like your case has been different. You're talking about very fast decision making on investments perhaps or deals. Can you tell us some stories that illustrate that? I think it worked. I think both statements are correct, which is the relationships are really important. So it's critical to build a relationship and develop that over time. But once that has been established and there's a level of trust and understanding, and one one of the things I think that I do pretty well is helping identify precisely what, you know, different companies and investors need. So once the trust is built and the opportunity has been identified, people tend to, you know, get comfortable with it because there's that basis has been established and execution tends to move more quickly than in other areas. Maybe that's

because perhaps in other countries like this I'm from the US spent most of my time working there that maybe you start off kind of cold and then you begin to discuss opportunities and it's not necessarily you know maybe the same sort of overall process takes place but here in the UAE you're absolutely right usually you don't have deals kicking off right away it's you know many meetings several follow-ups and then once everyone knows what the other party can you know needs and how you can help each other then that's when opportunities present themselves but I've seen you know I'm involved in transactions with different velocities for sure. So relationships do matter but there is definitely less bureaucracy. That's right when it's time to go which isn't necessarily on day one it's time to execute and finish. I love that. What size companies are you currently working with?

Quite, just kind of a fairly significant range of companies. What I look for are high growth, high quality companies with management that can really take things in scale and grow. I don't represent pizzerias or kind of businesses that are going to just stay small, even if they're profitable and wonderful, which is great. I'm looking for more emerging companies that can really change the world. I've got a billion dollar real estate fund here that I'm helping restructure the ownership of the assets for. I've got a large UAE based company with operations here in Latin America. We're doing financing out of Europe. We've got significant acquisitions we're doing in the US. are going to do over a billion dollars for the back positions in the next year year and a half so companies of that scale public companies i'm working with but also you know the right startups the right emerging companies if they like i said have what it takes to grow scale and do something

impactful so i'm working with some a med tech company in india i kind of alluded to before where they've already served diagnosed five million patients we're going to be i'm helping them secure investments for another $50 million, allow them to roll out these really incredibly innovative medical care sort of kiosks. It's like a booth in a restaurant, but it has $50,000, has all sorts of high-tech laboratory equipment built in because they can deploy them into rural clinics. But that alone is going to serve 20 million patients, and then we're going to go global from there. So that's going to be quite a growth journey. But again, a company that I can believe in because it's going to be candidly very profitable, but it also is going to have a tremendous impact in a really positive way. So that's an exciting thing to be involved in. So how would you describe this in the numbers language? We talked about how zeros are important. And in the audience, I know there are quite a few founders of various size companies in tech,

and digital asset space and FinTech alongside other more hard industries. So, metrics-wise, what is a business that you usually are going to advise on their position? What does it look like? So, fundamentally, it has to be, if we're going to embark on a journey together, I need to know that my partner can get to the finish line. So whether that is the right expertise in management, a product that's actually going to be there, and either the funding or a path to funding or some cash flow or otherwise where we're highly optimistic that we can get access to liquidity. I talk about taking companies public. What I look for, there are two different kind of mindsets of companies who are going public, right? There's one where the founders want to cash out and sit on a boat, and good for them, that's great. I love sitting on boats, but that's not really, it's hard to get overly inspired by that journey.

I'd rather work with a company that needs the liquidity to be listed on a major exchange so they can receive liquidity, and not only through the IPO, but through ongoing stock issuances to really help them grow, where they're looking at something truly transformative formative rather than just turn their paper stock into paper money. Very interesting. And what was it like coming to, um, to my Norwegian for the first time? You know, I think, uh, you know, maybe sadly, like a lot of Americans, I probably had some misconceptions about what I was going to see, what the, the, you know, the experience was going to be right. I, uh, had spoken to people and, you know, a lot of the feedback I got was actually on the non-business side about how you know dubai is exciting and glamorous and fun it's you know so lively which is great but i was just really blown away by um you know the the business people that i met which is most of the interaction i've had here have been people involved in

entrepreneurs financiers people with businesses are looking to grow and everybody other than the the local Emirati population, everyone's got the, which they have the same story, just not the first one. The first, the points they have are, I used to live somewhere else. I live here now. I love it. I'm never going to leave. And they're really inspired. It's just such an open, exciting community of, you know, people just willing to, you know, help and see how collaborations can occur and relationships can be built. So I just love that about the spirit of this place. Is this going to be your story as well? I think it's going to be my story. I don't know how much. I know I'm going to be here quite a lot. I'll be here at least once a month forever. And, you know, who knows? I would love to spend an unlimited amount of time here because the opportunity is just so thrilling, so much fun to be part of such a dynamic community.

And the community is everybody. That's what's great about it, right? I feel like I've been fortunate enough to meet a lot of really high-quality people and been welcomed in. But really what this is all about is just people who share the same mindset. And that seems so broadly available here. I absolutely love it. The kind of people you meet at Tech Tuesdays. Tech Tuesdays, yeah. What a great event. That's such a dynamic place. And again, I think that really reflects the spirit that I noticed on my very first visit. It's just people that are doing interesting things, positive attitude, want to help others. Nobody's set in their ways. It's all innovation and progress and thinking about how we can scale together. Very true. So let's talk specifics on the business activity in the region. First, let me understand what industries do you primarily work with?

You mentioned real estate, you mentioned healthcare, fintech, what else? So, really I work with any industry. Like I said, the key is that the company has the right profile, which is growth mindset, quality people, and the ability to complete the journey that they're committed to. But I work with fintech, healthcare, construction, businesses rolling up a lot of different companies. They're in the digital ad space, but quite a number of different ones. So a lot of healthcare innovation. I'm actually here this week and next week there's the World Health Expo in Dubai. by. So there's a large group of colleagues and friends from Miami who are involved in the medical, so a lot of tech investors, entrepreneurs, medical executives coming over,

sort of using that event as the framework and the excuse, if you will, to come over. But now we're not just going to be sitting in the audience in a big conference. We're going to be meeting with high-level officials and collaborating with investors, family offices, I work with family offices here too and help them identify investment opportunities. I have so many different mandates running both ways. I've got companies that are different phases of their funding needs, some early, some late. And then I have a number of companies and family offices and fund managers who, you know, right? We invest in this, not that. That's too early for that industry, too late for that one. so I try to put people together, but I'm just working a broad number of businesses. Beautiful. And what insights have you formulated for yourself when you started working with businesses in the Gulf comparing to working on the American market before? I would say, you know, a lot of it's the, there are a lot of similarities with the businesses themselves, I think.

You know, the entrepreneurial mindset. set. All happy families look alike. Yeah, there is that. You know, I think what's different and, you know, kind of what changes some of the opportunities here, like I mentioned, I work with real estate companies, and I'm staying in a kind of a condo hotel, and Sunday morning at 7 a.m., it was, you know, several hundred meters away, so it wasn't like noisy It didn't wake me up, but I noticed it's about 7 a.m. They're building a tall building. It's 25 stories high. The crane, the construction crane is running at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning as soon as it was light. So I think that reflects. It's a little different than what happened in America because the workforce here, they have a number of workers coming in from other countries where they tend to rotate shifts, which allows the city to develop so quickly. So that's one thing that's kind of fundamentally different is managing that type of real estate

project versus one in the US where you have people maybe working Monday through Friday, limited hours. Here you could have two or three shifts during a 24 hour cycle if the project would sustain that. So I think there's some aspects around the velocity of things, but in terms of the overall management, leadership, and focus, I think it's probably universal, right? Here I want to mention a very good piece from Amir Farha, the founder of Bako Capital, which has been a very important venture fund here in the industry. They were actually the first backer of Property Finder. talking about real estate. And Proper Defender is a unicorn, one of the largest tech companies here to provide marketplace for real estate, for other things. They recently closed additional financing round. It's a great example of an exceptional fund manager,

exceptional fund, exceptional companies now raising capital from sovereign wealth funds and international capital. How do you estimate the potential of companies here growing to this scale in the coming 10-15 years? Well, you mentioned the access to sovereign capital. I think that's one thing that I see here in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. We've got clients that perhaps many years ago you were required to have a local partner to own certain types of assets and conduct business. Here it's not necessarily the case, but it's very helpful to have access to that capital. I've got a client whose one of their important local partners is from a connected family, family and that helps them with access to funding as well as opportunities and connections. I don't think that they've needed to exploit too much of that yet, but they're well positioned

for future growth. But yes, I see, you know, one thing that is I think very encouraging and really interesting and should attract more investment here to the region is regardless of what people's misconceptions might be about how the royal families might operate and what their focus might be. They are shockingly innovative and looking for cutting edge opportunities. I've had some senior people share some visions of, you know, these enormous multi, multi billion dollar data centers and just really transformative forward thinking. So if you can get the right local partner, you have access to not only the capital, which is great, but really kind of a limitless thinking of what's possible. Let's do this. There are not as many constraints as you would otherwise have. So yes, seeing businesses that are growing that are really ready for that, you can get

a quality local partner and there's kind of no limit to the funding. funding. But again, they're not, these, these, they are very savvy investors. They are quite aware of what's happening in the market. They're not, you know, you're, this is not a dumb partner. This is a very savvy partner. This is a partner that's going to help you value add from a visionary standpoint. So that's a really great opportunity that you've highlighted. And now you're talking about having investment from sovereign wealth funds. And so in your experience they can be fairly well not operational in terms of running the business but active in terms of offering advice and communication around the general vision long-term vision for Dubai for Abu Dhabi and how your company can integrate that yes so for example I was at Abu Dhabi Finance Week which is a really great event yeah that is a really great event one of my clients was was interviewed on stage by their local Emirati partner.

And it was not only a really revealing interview, generally talking about what the company's focus is, but there was a real thrust and it was important to the Emiratis that this company can help showcase all the wonderful things that are happening here in the UAE. So, you know, there's just kind of a lot of support and excitement about what's happening in the region and if you're well positioned you can really tap into that. Well, UAE is really built on the ideas of prosperity and abundance. This concept of not feeling the lack of something, not only resource-wise, because let's be honest, it's a very resourceful country, but also in your mindset. I think that you really touched on it, right? It is the abundance mindset. It's not a wastefulness mindset. It's that we're not necessarily constrained in the ways that others might be. So it is. Maybe that's the best way to characterize this whole thing about the growth mindset and the positivity. It is really kind of an ethos of shared abundance and all the opportunities that can be.

So you touched upon one of your clients being interviewed on stage by their local Emirati partner. So would you say that for an international company wanting to get exposure to the local market or local capital, do they have to have an Emirati partner or just someone who's well connected in the region? Well, I think if they're going to operate over here, they have to understand the market and understand the people. So whether that requires a formal relationship with a partner or just making sure that they come in and handle it appropriately, like we touched on earlier about the importance of relationships and the timing. So they need to understand if they're coming here for funding opportunities, perhaps they're not taking a check back with them on the airplane. They're going to take a business card back with them and some great memories of having spent time with some quality people, but there's

going to be some follow-up required. When I was doing my research, I noticed that you've been involved in Miami real estate projects. In fact, my previous company, we were doing OTC transactions for digital asset of businesses but later we pivoted to working on organization projects because there was quite some interest from both the parties looking to raise capital and the parties looking to invest so one of these projects was actually based in wyoming data and still an ongoing conversation but i want to touch upon the topic of foreign capital coming into the us how is it different now than 10 20 20 years ago because you've been in the market for 30 years. So you've been able to see this inside out for a long period of time. Share us your insight. Well, you know, Miami for example. So I think there's always been foreign capital going in,

but it was sort of in different ways. So Miami has enjoyed a lot of growth in the last several years. And it was always a, you know, kind of an interesting place, a fun place, a happy place where people from Latin America, families with money would often buy property there as a way to essentially you know hedge against anything that could could go wrong and maybe their home countries you know currency fluctuations or political unrest they knew that they always had a you know a penthouse condo in Miami and money in the bank in the US so there was always that but yes of course yeah it's very vibrant community. What's changed in the last, I would say, five, certainly accelerated in the last five years, but in the last 10 years, Miami's become a really a finance hub. So many of, for tax and other reasons, many people, bankers from New York, Chicago, Citadel was one of the largest,

one of the largest hedge funds in the world, basically moved all their operations from Chicago Chicago to Miami. They have an office of course in New York and elsewhere, but that's really become their headquarters. So there was never really that sort of global financial enterprise. There were outliers. People certainly had money and were doing things there, but now there's an opportunity for professionals to thrive beyond that. And I see that other people who are wanting to consider moving to the U.S., people bringing their money, financiers looking for not just a vacation place but a place to grow a business, her viewing Miami is a really great opportunity for that. Working with capital locators here in the UAE, I assume it's your base right, not Saudi Arabia or Qatar? Correct, yes, I spend a lot of time here. Do you have a lot of interest towards investing in American companies, American real estate, American private equity?

Well, I think there are great opportunities everywhere. I don't think there's, there's certainly nothing wrong with the US market. Thank you, that's relieving. Yeah, I mean, it's always, it's a great place, right? There's Silicon Valley, there's always going to be innovation. There is an incredible, well developed ecosystem around emerging companies and the financing and growth that's available there. So that's really well established. I don't think it's ever going to dry up innovation. A large population will always be innovation. But I think what we're seeing in the last several years is the growth of other markets that are equally innovative. These are not second-rate technology or kind of late-to-the-party people that are just mimicking other ideas that originated elsewhere. These are their own homegrown innovations. I see that in the UAE, there's a lot of innovation coming out of India, real exciting growth

story there as well. So yes, the U.S. will always be important, probably the largest, most primary market, but what's happening here now in the UAE and elsewhere is head of the line, first class innovation, so it's really thrilling to be a part of it and see it happening. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. So, yes, America is a big capital hub, big innovation hub, but India, UAE, some other regions are also catching up, basically. Well, yeah, it's catching up and just side by side. So it's maybe different, you know, different companies, slightly different applications, but they're very much as advanced as forward thinking and promising. One of the things I've done, I touched on this earlier, is I help companies go public on the U.S. stock exchanges. And there are plenty of U.S. companies that are in the queue to do that.

But I'm working with a number of companies in this region, in Asia, who are incredibly innovative and have built very high-value businesses, all worth well over hundreds of millions of dollars, that now they're looking to tap into the liquidity of listing maybe and do a listing or listing in the US or a lot of different opportunities so there's a real growth story continuing to happen here. What's your take on the public markets here in the UAE? You know I was I'll have to admit I was a little naive about the Abu Dhabi Stock stock exchange, maybe a little biased with American exchanges about the liquidity. You know, the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange have always had probably the best volume in liquidity of any exchanges in the world, and certainly in the US. If you're going to list on a US exchange, those are the only two to list on.

You need the OTC and other things. Candidly, you just, you know, you can be thrilled with the concept that you're publicly traded, but there's really not the liquidity that you would enjoy, whether you're looking to sell your stock and cash out and as I said sit on a boat or more importantly be able to raise money on an ongoing basis it's just tough when there's not enough trading going I did not realize how strong the trading is on the Abu Dhabi stock exchange it's tremendous the companies trade very well there's a lot of liquidity the price stability is there so it is an excellent opportunity there's one company I'm working with they were looking at I was thinking well we're going to list them on NASDAQ and now we're maybe shifting to listing primarily on the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange. I think maybe while we list the parent on NASDAQ, list the sub in the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange and float a little bit of stock to have a little bit of liquidity and kind of touch point for the local market. But now we may do primary listing on the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange and do a dual listing in the US.

Oh, very, very interesting. It's a great exchange. I was shocked at how well companies, you know, their stock is stable and well traded. What are some of the recent listings you've been more involved in or can comment on? Well, you know, I've got a lot in process and I've done some in the US. US, but a lot of them are not quite ready to be announced. We've got one that's about to close, and I really don't want to jinx it too much by naming it, but this is one where we started. It was kind of a difficult process where we started at one type of transaction, then we migrated to another one. They're about to close. I helped a drone company. They don't make drones. They essentially have a mailbox that can receive drone deliveries. This is called Arrive AI.

So they started, it was kind of a challenging path. We started with an IPO. We transitioned, we were thinking about a SPAC for a short period of time. We explored a reverse merger, but unfortunately the reverse merger partner, which is often the case, was on a burning platform. Then we just shifted to a direct listing because they raised over $10 million through crowns. funding under Reg CF under the US securities laws so we had enough shareholders that's one of the criteria to list publicly so we're able to list them at the market cap of 350 million dollars. Very nice, congratulations. Talking about Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, what is sort of this valuation threshold where it's an absolute recommendation to list in the States? So in the U.S. you can do a listing at a lower value, but the challenge is the effort associated with the listing in some ways is greater for smaller companies because the process involves

essentially two things. You have to get approval of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which they regulate the securities market, so you have to make different filings with them. It's either an S-1 for a domestic U.S. company or maybe an F-1 if it's a foreign, a non-U.S. company listing directly. So they will, you not only have to complete a form that's maybe 300 pages of information, but once it's submitted, you're going to get a lot of very insightful and very pointed questions from the auditors. Oh, please explain this. Reconcile that number. That doesn't seem to square with what you're saying elsewhere in the document. So there's a lot of analysis and review that takes place. And really the focus there is on ensuring, protecting the investment public so they don't want people to buy stock in a company that's maybe in a tenuous position where the stock's going to crash.

And the exchanges are the same way. right they want to make sure it reflects poorly on the stock exchange if somebody lists at $10 a share and it's $2 a share a week later and it never gets you know that it goes down from there right so the stronger the more robust the company is the actually the less work is required so I would say you know their companies and people that try to champion micro cap listings where you can just barely satisfy the you know objective listing criteria but that's never a good idea i don't see any of those really trading very well it's just kind of a short millions of cash grab to the founders candidly um i would say if you don't have to have confidence that your market cap is above 100 million dollars you're probably if you've got a winning story and a business or a product that's actually making sense you're better off waiting i had one company company to come to me and they were like, we need, we'd like you to help us with an IPO.

I'm like, great. And they were looking to raise $50 million at, you know, maybe a hundred million dollar valuation. I'm like, okay, we can probably do that. But then I identified what they were doing and you know, what, what their, you know, the potential candidly that they had. And I said, let's not do that. Let's, I will find you $50 million privately, maybe, maybe some debt, maybe. but you know mostly equity let's get some strategic partners involved and then let's grow this we're gonna do a billion dollar I feel in two years let's do that instead so you don't always want to just you know as with anything right people have a have a goal in mind and then maybe clients suggest the process and where I as an expert can say all right let's let's honor your goals of growth you need 50 million dollars to grow that's great I'm not going to tell you don't need that bullets you know people's be open to different ways to get there so you know you could we could have done a listing and you know

probably got it over the finish line got them with traded on the asset just like they asked and candidly my legal fees would have been bigger this year and had I done that transaction versus you know what I'm gonna help you help introduce you to some partners I know with access to liquidity it would really be able to get behind your business and let's throw this thing let's go for a billion dollars I really respect this. One of the lectures that I enjoyed at the beginning of my career in finance was from Jim Donovan, if I'm not mistaken, The Making of an Investment Maker. and there he outlines eight or ten principles that anyone working in the IB has to follow and one of them is about giving your client advice that might not benefit you as an investment banker but it should always benefit the client and what you mentioned is an excellent example of just that. Yeah, that's right because it's, you know, first of all it's short-lived and second of

all you know even if I were cynically looking out for my own best interest this client is going to be on a real growth journey so there's gonna be plenty plenty for me to do plenty for me to help them with and you know I like doing things correctly the right way and it was just the advice that they need to position them for kind of a real global global conquest in this case how does What does your collaboration with the clients look like? You're obviously a part of a law firm, you're a partner. So in this case, do you have a team of associates helping you with the process of reviewing the document, building strategic plans, consultancy? Do you do a large portion of this yourself, applying your strategic insights and experience? Walk us through this. Sure. So there are two aspects to this. There's the legal work associated with drafting the documents and helping them with the series

of A rounds that they're going to be embarking on to get their $50 million for that particular client. So I've got colleagues who are incredibly skilled at drafting the documents. We've got associates who can operate very efficiently. We have paralegals on the team as well who can assist with the filing so it's always really kind of cost effective and you have the right people handling the appropriate appropriate tasks that are well suited for them. But one thing I'm bringing to this project that's different than most attorneys is I can find them $50 million through my connections that I have. Most attorneys would say, call me back when you've got $50 million. But I said, let's find $50 million. And I've been making phone calls. I've got them connected with a number of bankers, private equity funds, money managers, family family offices and we're in the process and you know, I've assigned them some homework to get their financials in presentable form.

And I've got colleagues in the industry that we're gonna help them with their pitch decks and really get everything spot on. So they can have kind of a sort of a virtual by Zoom roadshow. But so that's one thing that I think I do that's beyond the scope of what a lot of attorneys do which is you know when a project comes intact and packaged and they can paper it i'm packaging it and papering it that's excellent you know actually the beginning of my career i was working for a small boutique hedge fund in ukraine but then i focused on marketing and working directly with spin tech founders and branding and i somehow developed this ability to be a translator, what I say, talking to visionary people and sometimes those people are almost too visionary in a sense that they don't speak the regular people's language. So you need to have someone who's in between and who's able to package it nicely, like

you said. Well, and you know, here's the thing too, when you're working with maybe more established established larger companies, which I've done. I've worked for some of the largest corporations in the world. But when you're working with more emerging companies, who is there? It is going to generally be the innovators who understand the technology, who've developed something really unique that's valuable in the market. But these people, they've not done an initial public offering. They've not necessarily raised money from, you know, at this scale from more savvy investors so that's an aspect of the process they don't understand and that's where I can assist bankers and other advisors should come in and help them with that that's kind of a blind spot for them and and it doesn't reflect poorly on them at all because that's not their skill set they would not be here if they spent half their time trying to figure out you know cap tables and funding and financing if they need to be committed to you know executing and

and growing and developing and innovating and not, hey, how do we, let me go to the, because right now, today I'm dressed, I'm going to this family office conference here in Dubai. And there's certainly some founders there looking to make connections and gain funding, but they don't need to be traveling all the time going to these conferences pounding the pavement. They need to be test tubes and beakers and computers and AI and doing their thing. You're absolutely right. I can vouch for this from my personal experience too. Again, my previous firm doing OTC, we did over 60 million dollars of OTC transactions for very large companies in digital asset space. And of course, these founders, they had no time to get involved in negotiations. They could only talk to very serious buyers or if we're talking about investors who were looking for some secondary sales.

Let's talk about your network building protocols. Because, especially here in Dubai, but in general in the capital space, there are many capital founders, connectors, advisors, consultants. Many of them are seeking these capital connections. They seek trust, but it's very hard to build. What is your protocol for nailing that? ask. So what I do, I don't ask, I don't take, I give. So I am, I kind of approach with how can I help you? Not how can I help you for a fee, but how can I help you? What do you need? Oh, you're interested in this. Okay, well, this is your, you're at this point in your journey. You need to talk to people. Let me, let me make some phone calls for you. Let me put you in touch with the right people. So offering to help I think is the most powerful thing you can do because then you know what people appreciate it and then candidly after they've received the help

they're in a better position to hire you to work on other more more advanced things. So so that's really my secret. I don't go um I just I don't literally I don't ask anybody for anything other than how can I help you and then it just the network builds comes around and then you know you're suddenly you're swamped with so many opportunities it's hard to manage. Excellent thing. I'm very much enjoying this. One thing I noticed recently I joined Tech Tuesdays as a female edition co-host but I've gone to networking events for the past seven years So on Tech Tuesdays and in general, I see many people when they meet you and they hear that you're somehow connected to capital, like when I mentioned the panel offices, they just start pitching you without asking a single question. But when I asked you a question of what's your capital network building protocol, you

led with the question, how can I help you? And would you agree that many people, they misunderstand that investors also need something? So you might be better off asking them what they need, helping them with that instead of immediately offering them this amazing new shiny opportunity. Yeah, so, I mean, if I were an innovator at a company and we're looking for funding, and I ran into you at one of the Tech Tuesdays, one of these great events that so many of them happen here in Dubai, I would not say, hey, let me tell you about my great product. I want you to invest in it. I would ask a question of the investor and say, what kind of things do you invest in? Oh, okay. Well, you know what? I could, I know a lot about that area. I'm sure you come across a lot of pitch decks and proposals. I would love to, you know, just,

It helps me, it could help you. I would love to assist on kind of a no-fee basis, just maybe filter some of the deals that come to you, and I can share my insights about the market and things I'm seeing because some of the technology, I can tell you what's outdated, what's cutting edge, what's going to be tough to monetize. And you approach them with that energy, right? Well, guess what? You have more than a 90-second conversation with the funding person. You have connectivity. You make a friend, you're there in the conference room with them, and then eventually it's going to come around to, and thank you for this, this has been so great, how can I help you? Well, you know, we were talking about, you know, this Web 3 because, you know, I know that you're really interested in that, and, you know, that's one thing my company's doing. So I don't know if, you know, now's a good time, but let me know. I'd love to, you know, kind of share what we're doing because we've got a pretty interesting story ourselves. Wouldn't that be more effective if you got that pitch and that approach?

Amazing, I'm feeling soul here and now. Right? Wouldn't that be better? And you have this energy. Now I see where the real sauce is. I should have started with, now let's talk about deal making and relationship building. I can see the passion in your eyes when we talk about this. So, that's what it is, right? So again, the same conversation, one of them is going to fall flat, and the other is you're going to be shoulder to shoulder with you know a significant investor could be of strategic value to you because you're helping them very true that's coming back to and here I want to roll it into the second part of our conversation this the new times and the changing times for for the consulting industry, for lawyers. Recently, Entropic released a legal tool, an AI legal tool, and it impacted the stocks

of legal companies, like in European, like London Stock Exchange, some of them dropped by 10, 15%, which is very significant. So you, as an advisor, as a lawyer, consultant, Obviously what you're great at, relationship building, cannot be replaced by AI. But what about some more mundane tasks, day-to-day tasks? Are you or your firm using AI and what's your take on how this is going to impact the consulting industry? Well, I think it's, you know, the consulting industry, everyone's beginning to use AI to do initial drafts and analysis. But, you know, before we had, before we almost had the internet, I, we, you know, I'm that old unfortunately, where research was done in a really low tech manner. And my mantra was then, which it is now, I do my own work.

So I don't rely on somebody else's take. So it used to be, right, somebody would write an article about something that would do some analysis. Well, they're smart, they're working a big law firm, it must be right, I bet they had their partners review this. No. I would read that and say, it sounds right to me, but then I would go to the source documents and do it all myself and take total ownership of it. That's always been my secret to success, I think, in terms of the deep analytics. So same thing with AI, right? You could type in a focus query, and you might spit out great legal analysis, which might might seem right at the time but I would never in a million years send that to a client like cut and paste into a client or just pretty it up with some formatting changes and be sure and delete the little prompt what's your next question prompt at the end like people don't do and I don't know if you've been following this but there have been some cautionary tales about cases in the US

where attorneys go into court and they're arguing on behalf of a client whether it's a criminal case or just a civil litigation and they typed in their art their their legal briefs that they had to write to convince the judge why why their client should prevail and whatever the the issue was and they used a either use AI to write the thing because they were lazy and AI hallucinated and made up fake cases that don't exist and then not only is it you lose we're disappointed you it's embarrassing but some of these attorneys were actually fined for that and some suspended for like 30 days suspension. So I guess kind of coming around to all this, it's a great tool. It can, you know, as with any tool, right, it frees you up to do other things. I don't, you know, there's a lot here, right? We were, you led with the idea of the legal stocks plummeting. I don't know that I'm surprised

by that take on the analysis there because, you know, even if it required less legal work to be done, you would theoretically have less overhead. So the profitability ought to remain the same, one would think. But, you know, hey, I'm not necessarily an equities analyst. But I think it's going to be a tool. I don't think it's going to displace anyone. And kind of the last little thought here is, sorry to everyone who's not a lawyer, but we lawyers get to write rules for lawyers in the practice of law and I'm pretty confident that the Bar Association which does a pretty, which has always been pretty protective and kind of the monopoly if you will aren't gonna let robots march into court anytime soon. Well, let's pray to that, I suppose. I certainly wouldn't want for AI to be defending me in court. Yeah, I've met some lawyers, I think I would prefer a robot, but that's okay.

Well, you can tell some secrets, I guess. I can tell that you are very diplomatic. But on AI and lawyers, I mean, I can make a guess that the law companies, on one hand, yes, for sure, they can use AI, same as consultants can for preliminary research. but it basically lowers the rate they can charge clients as well, right? Yeah, I think you're right that if a client can take an issue, dump it into AI and come out with some analysis, they're going to be directionally correct. They're not going to be starting from blind or from nothing, right? They're going to say, hey, we looked at this. It looks like it could be this or that. We just need you to confirm that. So you're right. there's there could I guess be in some ways less work to do because the the building blocks are broadly available for investment banking and for investing

one important benefit that AI brings is that your client comes prepared and can at least speak the same language and understand the directionally correct outcome of the conversation so maybe can be less convincing because at least you're on the same page, even if it's an AI generated page. No, I think that's great because again, what I think is going to be so helpful in this consulting, banking, legal avenue is the fact that AI can free us up to focus on other more nuanced things, add value in other ways rather than having to do the fundamental of fundamental framing of issues. So if we get all started at, you know, kind of the jumping off point starts a much higher basis than it used to, you know, five or ten years ago, I think that there's just analysis is going to be that much more precise, focused.

Because with what I do, like I said, we've talked about sort of the pitch decks and companies seeking funding and positioning themselves appropriately. you have so many different investors, family offices, fund managers that are very specific in their criterion and what this will allow companies to do and the bankers that are assisting them is to make sure that their presentation materials are absolutely spot on and then also they can use AI to filter a lot of information so it's not like well I know 15 or 20 people well I'll just splash this out to everyone I know well it may be that you can identify a broader sampling of potential investors and then filter it and make sure it's presented in a way that really resonates with the appropriate core audience. Very true. Would you say that this getting the list of potential investors even if they're not a part of your network is a good approach to follow when we're talking about

later stage financing because in earlier stage firms I tend to advise founders I work with that instead of making lists of VCs somewhere in the States they're so much better off with starting with people they already know and getting them vouching for their personality for the project and expanding the circles for introductions. You know I think that's a really great approach right rather than go to Andreessen Horowitz, who you don't have any connections to. Well, I emailed it to info at. That's probably not going to work. Wouldn't you be better off going to a friend, a colleague, somebody you've established trust with before, get their view on it, get them to maybe help champion it, use their insights and connections to present this to the appropriate audience that's going to be receptive to it. But it's slightly different in a growth stage financing, correct?

Oh, yes. It's different because it involves, I think there are certainly different considerations, right? I had somebody come to me this week. They're looking to buy a $30 million block of Stripe stock. I don't sell Stripe stock. I'm not a Stripe shareholder. but I have connections and I was able to identify people who have stock and then put them together with the people that wanted the stock and they're actually going to get directly on the cap table it's kind of a nice happy story for that one but in terms of you know connections and helping people I think I think it's great to work on kind of a closer basis with people you know and just kind of let it sort of emerge and I think that goes to the relationships and patience and you know founders would all love to you know kind of put the fundraising behind them and be able to

focus on the execution which you know that's great wouldn't we all but I think patience in the process could serve them well and just kind of expanding your network and letting the the momentum build is a really positive way to approach it that's a great suggestion so for founders raising capital for early stage versus growth stage companies in the latter case there's basically more numbers so you have to do less convincing and you can if the offer is appealing from financial standpoint you are better off just making a list and getting the introduction or working with someone like you on getting in contact with the specific capital providers so when the numbers make sense the deal is likely to go through. Yes. And the personality of the founder matters less, especially if it's a public traded company, right? Yeah, right. So like that example just this last night, literally about the Stripe stock, right? So that's just going to be,

nobody has to be convinced that the company is investable. And there's clearly demand, there's clearly, there's limited supply. supply, purely coming down to a pricing discussion. So very just kind of, you know, as long as the buyer has the wherewithal to, you know, send the wire once the deal has been reached, that's all pretty much all that matters in this transaction. So you're right, nobody cares about the founder or the personality of the investors or, you whether they would become great friends and work together over time. It's more transactional in the later stages. That said, I'm working with a company right now that's got, they turned down a significant investment at a $300 million valuation because nothing wrong with the putative investors that wanted to come in,

but they didn't feel as though they would bring much strategically to what they were trying to do. They had their money was good money. It wasn't like, you know, from some sort of odd tainted sources, they would be perfectly sound investors and, you know, kind of silently put the money in which, hey, a lot of people prefer that, right? But then this company is looking for a strategic partner. The value add is very important in companies that are building for impact. You want as much support as you can get. Talking about, let's touch upon secondary markets for companies that are private. So I work with family offices who oftentimes are more newly established, new money, exited founders, for instance. And we all know that private equity returns are fairly good. There is some speculation around the numbers and how they are calculated. but many of them want to get an opportunity to be a part of the market

but it's obviously more difficult than investing in public companies so what's your recommendation for companies for entities like this for investors like this well it's different different approaches right so one would be they can you know you can achieve liquid you borrow against the value of your equity position right you need some liquidity but that's not really necessarily the best kind of liquidity. I'm working with one company that's doing, what they're doing is they're acquiring a number of private companies mainly from legacy founders and not necessarily from private equity but their value proposition is they're gonna buy your business, they'll pay whatever the purchase price is, they'll pay about 70% in cash, about 15% of promissory notes, they'll pay you an additional amount over like three to five years and they're giving you 15% equity in a company and we're going to do a multi-billion dollar IPO in 2027 so there's a little bit of you know cash now cash later so that that's an opportunity and then you know you're talking about the secondary

market so the strike stock the anthropics the SpaceX there's I have I'm in communication with quite a lot of investors and there's tremendous liquidity and interest in in those investments. I did a Whatsapp chat a week and a half ago. Hey I'm looking for some SpaceX stock who's got any to sell? Oh I do how much do you want? Dollar sign 1B DM me. So there is liquidity out there there's interest there are opportunities to exit quality private companies. And in this case are we talking about more institutional capital? at all, like think of a sovereign husband of one amazing country, or are we talking about individuals, family offices here in the world? This is more of a family office and private equity community. So that was a family office that was behind the decision to purchase a billion dollars

worth of SpaceX stock. Excellent. Excellent. And what about the list of the companies that are generating a lot of interest? Because one question I get is, well, with private equity shares, obviously, how do you ensure that down the line you're going to find your exit liquidity? Maybe you want to hold your position for 2, 3, 5 years, you believe in the company's future, but perhaps it's not a 10 billion dollars firm yet. So what analysis goes into it and how do you help investors like this? Well, I would say, you know, these, well, most private equity investors are pretty savvy. They know the market. They're good at evaluating companies. companies. So I would say they would, you know, might be well served there if they're really concerned about equity on some sort of exit. Look for companies that have where

there will definitely be value, which are tangible assets on the balance sheet, cash flow and profits. Somebody is always going to want to buy that business. Now, if you're into somebody's trying to develop a cure for cancer, that could either be, you know, transformative or it could go to zero. So, you know, depending on what your investment appetite is for risk, you know, you can probably protect yourself by focusing on, do you want your money back in three years? Buy a company that's always going to be worth something in three years, that there's no no prospect of it going to zero or being undesirable, and certainly never invest in a company that's kind of on a cash flow negative death cycle unless it's clear that there's just tremendous interest and they're building to something really transformative. Bottom line, if there's a lot of convincing that has to be done, maybe don't touch the deal. I think that's right. But that said, there are different ways to touch the deal.

So you don't always have to just take a preferred position or a common position. You can maybe take a convertible debt position where you can be first in line anyway to get your money back at some of it. You can have the ability to convert. You can have a lot of rights. and again that's one thing when when you're a private company who needs money going to people who have money the people who have money in most contexts get to dictate terms more than the company I mean if you're you're you're blessed enough where you have you know a number of different investors competing to you know for your interest in investment okay that's great then maybe you can be somewhat you know in control of the you know the parameters of the investment but if you know you're really kind of need that money the investors can exploit that bargaining position and you know dictate terms and maybe have a

lot of ways to you know conditions in the agreement itself that allow them to exit and give them away and get some money back. Talking about risk appetite, so with every guest I have on our podcast show, I like to talk about their personal capital protocols and approaches to managing their own assets. So for someone who has seen the industry from inside out, you've worked with many companies on IPO and M&A, what is your risk appetite? You know, I'm not a very exciting investor. This would be a very short podcast if you're talking about my exotic personal investing positions. I just kind of buy, you know, index funds, real estate, save some money, got a little bit of crypto, that kind of thing. You know, pretty stable, pretty stable investments. And it's not necessarily a case where the cobbler has no shoes, right? I work with all these companies and all these cutting edge innovations.

I just, you know, candidly, they don't need me on the cap table to make little investments here and there. I'm not really going to plow all in on some emerging company. So it's not really going to advance their cause for me to place money in a number of these companies. So I've kind of stayed out of the private investment space. How does this feel? Well, I'm a huge fan of all these companies I work with, right? I want them to succeed in the best possible way because like I said, I tend to work with companies and work with companies I like, that I believe in, so I'm their biggest cheerleader. Well, I'm one of the Invest Like the Best podcast episodes. It was a very exciting and renowned investor who was talking about a conversation with his friend at Turnabout.com. and it basically goes as well how does it feel to be in the bubble and the math

transfers well certainly better than being outside of the bubble I absolutely love this but this kind of shows that when you're selling the dream of something that definitely will find its market and will grow you want to be to be a part of that so if you're not doing that what is your asset allocation What are you mostly into? So, just mainly equities, right? Just kind of broad-based equity positions, large cap tech companies, that kind of thing. Okay. Nothing too. Any considerations of... Are you planning to relocate to Dubai, actually? You know, I'm going to spend a lot of time here. I don't know if I'll become a full-time citizen. Unfortunately, as a U.S. citizen, we're taxed on our worldwide income. So I meet with all these, you know, Brits and people from elsewhere and they're always, you know, meeting for coffee. Like, isn't it great being here in Dubai? You don't have to pay any taxes. You should move here.

And then I have to explain the unfortunate aspects of the U.S. tax system, which is the U.S. citizen, you're taxed on your worldwide income. You can exempt about $135,000 a year of income. But otherwise you have to pay tax on, you know, regardless of where you live and what you do. There are a few exceptions. For U.S. territories, we get a pretty good deal. But in general, you're paying the same tax whether you live in Dubai or not. I absolutely love it here. I plan to spend a tremendous amount of time and probably will be increasing my footprint as I go forward, for sure. It's the most dynamic market in the world. I lived in New York and Silicon Valley, Miami. and there's really nothing like the spirit and the community and how candidly easy it is to get plugged in with some really good people who can bring the right energy. Your firm, will we have an office here? Yes, we have an office here now, so we're going to be expanding that.

We, in fact, had coffee with an established Emirati lawyer, so there could be opportunities to increase our local capabilities, which would be great. but you know that said I like collaborating with some really high quality local firms here in the UAE local partners without being partners who you know we can you know work together on things where I can handle the US aspects of things and they're you know tremendously skilled in addressing issues within the country and the region. Are you happy with your choice of career? I am, you know, I started out, I've been my whole career, I've fundamentally been an international tax lawyer, so focused, you know, earlier part in, can't believe a lot of my career was focused on the highly technical aspects,

working on very complicated transactions, really nuanced issues as to whether or not something would or would not be subject to US tax. It wasn't a matter of looking up the answer and the answer was clear. It was a matter of, well how could we achieve, you know, here's where we are, this is the benefit we'd like to achieve, how could we get there, how, you know, comfortable are we with the tax position that if we were to do it this way that we could avoid US tax, defer the tax on a transaction, how comfortable are we with that and a whole lot of zeros involved, involved, you know, $30 billion, $35 billion kind of transactions. So I was highly technical, you know, part of a team, part of a kind of a subset of the deal team. And I still do that. I can do that. I can roll up my sleeves and go as deep as I need to. But, you know, of late, I really enjoyed the strategic, and what's always stayed with me about being a tax lawyer is you're required to think strategically and creatively and bring kind of an innovative

spirit to it. So that's what I do now. I don't necessarily, you know, I'm not writing 50-page incredibly arcane tax memos about what this could or could not be. I'm helping them, I'm helping companies execute, move forward, achieve liquidity on a global scale, partner with them, be, you know, kind of a value driver and somebody that helps them, you know, gain momentum and not necessarily, necessarily, you know, I was the big brain guy now and the big relationship guy. And I enjoyed it all. And what is the big vision for Chris? So I guess the big vision is going to be, you know, continue to grow, continue to identify companies that I believe in. Just, like I said, approaching things with the, you know, kind of a giving spirit of how I can help and, you know, just look for innovations and technologies and companies that can you know have a positive impact on things

that's that's the big visions positive impact on things any closing remarks well i would just say thank you for for having me on this has been a really fun fun conversation i i've appreciated this you've given me you know a lot of you know key points to think about and i really appreciate your insight in the you know invest both as an investor and as a founder you've got tremendous perspective on things so thank you for sharing that with me it's been great I appreciate it well it's 360 the 40 countries later it's a Venture Protocol my name is Anastasia Lukas and I'll see you later thanks for having me excellent wow this is great I love it when I can get a guest to get this fire into her eyes okay Okay. Oops. Oh my, that wasn't recorded. I had no idea you were so much into it. Oh my, that's terrible. I've somehow messed up the mic. Maybe we'll put it back so the counterbalance is right.

Yes. How do we do that? Oh, here we go, there we go. That helped, it was just sticking out. I'm glad it didn't happen during the podcast. We're done, yes. So good, right? Yes, excellent. So many insights. You look good on camera. I went more than an hour, right? So that's a good sign you didn't cut me off. Yes, it is a good sign. And I got to say, you didn't oversell your being a guest on the podcast. I really appreciated how you could pause and have a conversation. I appreciate it. Yeah, that was, yeah, that's what, you know, just hosting and moderating things.