Analysis

September 20, 2024

Mubadala’s top team in Europe

Despite backing many of Europe’s best-known tech companies, Mubadala’s team keeps on the DL


Freya Pratty and Amy Lewin

4 min read

Ibrahim Ajami

Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala is among the most deep-pocketed investors backing European tech, with $302bn in assets under management.

It has some of Europe’s biggest and most closely-watched tech companies in its portfolio, including Klarna and, as of this summer, Revolut — buying a stake as part of the fintech’s $500m employee share sale in August. 

This week it’s reinvested in speedy grocery startup Flink, which raised $150m, regaining a foothold in the European quick commerce sector after another portfolio company Getir — of which it’s a majority shareholder — exited the continent last year.

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But Mubadala’s billions haven’t left it immune to the tech winter. As Bloomberg reports, since the start of 2024, at least four companies in Mubadala’s European portfolio have undergone structural change, refinancing or leadership changes — including a boardroom battle at German insurtech Wefox and Getir’s retreat from all but one of its markets.

Yet, despite being such a significant  investor in some of Europe’s best-known companies, Mubadala — and its team — aren’t so well-known. 

Here’s what we know.

Mubadala Capital Ventures

Mubadala Ventures (the sovereign wealth fund’s VC arm) closed a €450m fund to invest in European tech companies in 2020. Alongside sovereign wealth, the Europe fund has almost a dozen external LPs; the only publicly known one is SoftBank.

Mubadala’s Europe fund makes direct investments into startups. It’s made 19 bets on the continent to date, including Flink, Wefox, Spanish food delivery company Glovo, British second-hand car marketplace Cazoo, German micromobility startup Tier, British drug development company Exscientia, French biotech Owkin and Swedish digital vet Firstvet.

Wefox and Flink aren’t the only portfolio companies to have hit stormy waters recently. Cazoo — which Mubadala invested in across multiple funding rounds (and waxed lyrical about) — entered administration this year, while Tier merged with competitor Dott after struggling to raise further funding. Mubadala led a €60m investment into the new joint entity in January.

The European team sits in London. They are:

Ibrahim Ajami 

Ajami is head of ventures at Mubadala. He looks after the fund’s direct investments globally, as well as its fund-of-funds programme. Ajami’s worked at Mubadala since 2006 and, after a long stint in Abu Dhabi, is now based in the UK.

Frederic Lardieg

Lardieg is a partner, joining Mubadala Ventures in 2019. Before that, he worked at Octopus Ventures and Vodafone Ventures. According to LinkedIn, Lardeig led Mubadala’s investments into Glovo, Cazoo, Matera, Ramp and HiveMQ.

Jonno Eliot

Eliot joined Mubadala Ventures as a partner in 2022. He was previously managing director at Virgin Management, Richard Branson’s family office, where he invested in companies including Wise, Square and Slack. 

Max Holnaicher

Holnaicher joined Mubadala as a partner in 2019, after working at a bootstrapped healthtech company that was sold to a PE firm. Before that, he worked for Torch Partners, a tech-focused investment bank.

Preten Patel

Patel joined Mubadala as a technology investor in 2021 after working on M&A at Barclays. According to LinkedIn, he’s worked on the fund’s investments into Klarna, TreasurySpring and Storyblok.

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Mubadala Investment Company

Mubadala’s growth team, which sits within Mubadala Investment Company, has invested in Revolut, Klarna and Getir.

Hani Barhoush

Barhoush is Mubadala Capital’s CEO and managing director, and also CEO of Mubadala’s ‘disruptive investments’ platform — which means he oversees the ventures and growth teams, amongst other things. Before joining Mubadala 20 years ago, he was an ​​investment banker at Merrill Lynch in New York. He sits on Getir’s board. 

Faris Al Mazrui

Al Mazrui is head of growth investments at Mubadala Investment Company. He’s worked at the organisation for 14 years, and is based in Abu Dhabi. He was previously a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs.

Anna Gostevcic

Gostevcic has recently joined Mubadala’s growth team in London. She was previously a growth equity investor at Inovia Capital, a Canadian VC. 

Nathalie Bejjani

Bejjani is a growth investor, based in London. She was previously an investor at Abu Dhabi-based VC BY Venture Partners. 

Bernard Hazard

Hazard is a growth investor, based in London. He was previously an investor at VC firm Energy Impact Partners.

Silvia Biscaldi

Biscaldi, another growth investor based in London, was previously a managing director at Goldman Sachs. 

Freya Pratty

Freya Pratty is a senior reporter at Sifted. She covers climate tech, writes our weekly Climate Tech newsletter and works on investigations. Follow her on X and LinkedIn

Amy Lewin

Amy Lewin is Sifted’s editor and host of Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast , and writes Up Round, a weekly newsletter on VC. Follow her on X and LinkedIn