First-time founders in UAE, don’t just pitch—ask questions.

R Philip • March 14, 2025

Ask the VCs intelligent questions

VCs aren’t just judging you. You should judge them too.

Many founders don’t know they can (and should) ask VCs questions. It’s not a one-way street! Here are key questions to make sure the VC is a good fit:

💰 When did you raise your fund?
👉 Newer funds have more money to invest. Older funds might be running low.

📊 What stage of capital deployment are you at?
👉 If they’re near the end, they may not have much left to invest.

💵 What’s your typical ticket size?
👉 You want to make sure your funding needs match what they can offer.

📈 How much have you already invested?
👉 If they’ve spent most of their money, they may not invest much more.

📅 Are you still fundraising? When’s your next close?
👉 If they’re still raising money, they might not be ready to invest in you.

⚡ How long from commitment to wire transfer?
👉 Some VCs pay fast. Others take months. Delays can hurt your startup.

Be smart. Ask the right questions before you say yes.

What’s one question you wish you had asked a VC?👇

(PS. Random image of a car? I know, I was experimenting with Grok3 and made this image for fun)

By R Philip February 27, 2026
Company News: Futureu Strategy Group acted as Strategic & Transaction Advisor to Insurancehub.ae on its Advisory Support in Connection with a Strategic Divestment Transaction Services included: •⁠ ⁠Founder-level strategic advice •⁠ ⁠Transaction positioning •⁠ ⁠Counterparty discussions support •⁠ ⁠Deal execution advisory Transaction successfully completed.
By R Philip February 17, 2026
60 Seconds. That's How Long Device Insurance Underwriting Just Took. Customer uploads invoice. AI extracts data. Risk assessed. Premium calculated. Policy generated. What normally takes hours happened in under a minute. Here's the workflow (see video below for details): Upload proof of purchase → AI validates documents → Assigns risk tier → Calculates pricing → Generates policy summary → Flags for human review if needed Why senior insurance leaders should care: Traditional underwriting drowns teams in manual data entry. This eliminates it. Your underwriters stop copying invoice numbers into spreadsheets. They start reviewing edge cases and building customer relationships. The deployment reality: Works in your local cloud (UAE compliant) Lives in your data center if needed Uses YOUR underwriting guidelines Maintains human oversight gates What changes: Faster processing time + Zero manual data extraction errors Same quality standards + Better customer experience What stays the same: Your risk appetite. Your pricing strategy. Your underwriter's final call on complex cases. The catch: This isn't future tech. It's deployable today. Most insurers just haven't asked the right questions yet. For insuring phones and laptops now. SME commercial lines and travel insurance next. Seen similar AI workflows transform your underwriting? What's holding your team back from testing these?