Inside Initiate: What Backing Founders at the Earliest Stage Actually Looks Like

A year in, the numbers alone tell the story.

Close to 5,500 people have applied to Initiate, Hub71’s programme for founders at the earliest stage. Of those, 460 profiles have been referred to Initiate’s venture-builder partners, 14 are in active discussions, and one startup has already launched from the programme and is being built in Abu Dhabi. Alongside the programme itself, more than 800 have registered for Initiate’s activation sessions across July and August. Seven sessions in two months, most of them at capacity.

What is worth understanding, though, is how those numbers fit together. Initiate was designed for founders at the earliest point in their journey, both those still exploring an idea and those already beginning to build one. The point most support programmes overlook, before the company exists, before the pitch deck, and often before the founder is entirely sure entrepreneurship is the right path.

There are two sides to the programme running in parallel: the venture-builder track, which is how founders are formally matched with a venture builder to build a company; and the activation sessions, which are how Hub71 stays engaged with the 5,500 aspiring founders in the pipeline still waiting to be matched.

Meeting Founders Through the Workshops

The workshops are where most aspiring founders first encounter Initiate. They are practical sessions built for the moment an idea is beginning to take shape, the point when the right question, framework or conversation can steer a venture before it starts.

The sessions covered the four decisions founders face at the earliest stage: problem validation, customer discovery, venture building and finding the right co-founder. The series opened with a session on how to validate a problem worth solving, led by Tabby’s Head of Product for B2B Lending, a practical look at how to test whether a problem is real before building anything to solve it. Another session had Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB)’s Vice President of Design running a full-day Design Sprint, taking founders from customer problems to testable prototypes in a single day. A Co-Working Day gave founders space to build on what they had started in the sprint, with mentor office hours and direct feedback from investors and operators. The series closed at the end of August with SC Ventures running a hands-on validation workshop that founders left with a concrete test to run within 72 hours.

However, the session that best captures what Initiate is trying to do had 90 solo founders turning up to a co-founder matching event, one of the earliest and most consequential decisions a founder ever makes. By the end of the session, the 90 founders in the room had made 260 connections between them. One of them was Abdulaziz Somar, Emirati founder of Artistominds, who came in with a relatively early-stage idea and left having matched with two others. The three of them are now building a company together and closing their first funding round.

Feedback across the series sat consistently above 4.5 out of 5. The turnout matters as much as the ratings; it shows a real appetite for early-stage support in the emirate, from founders already building companies and from people still weighing whether to start one.

The Venture-Building Side of the Programme

Alongside the workshops is the venture-building side of Initiate, aimed at early-stage founders who are already committed and beginning to build. This is where founders receive direct support from Hub71’s venture builder partners to refine ideas, validate opportunities and build new ventures from the ground up. Prism56, the first startup progressing through this side of the programme, is now being built in Abu Dhabi with Fikra Ventures. The startup is an AI-driven platform that automates venture capital deal evaluation and investment commitment workflows and has moved from concept to minimum viable product on its way into pilot deployment.

An Expanding Network of Builders

The programme’s ability to back more founders depends on the venture builders working alongside them. Hub71 has expanded Initiate’s venture builder network with Disrupt.com and TMC2 MEA, broadening the expertise available to founders as they develop and validate their ventures. For founders coming through Initiate, that means more choice in who they build alongside and a wider set of pathways into the market.

As founders progress, they continue building within Hub71’s global tech ecosystem through the Access Programme, which supports startups from pre-seed through to Series A. Together, Initiate and Access form part of Hub71’s programme pathway, helping founders move from venture creation and early validation towards growth, market access and investment readiness.

The Pipeline Being Built

A year of Initiate has done two things: it has shown that early-stage founder demand in Abu Dhabi is significantly bigger than most people expected, and it has shown that the model works.

Reaching founders earlier than most programmes do is only the start. What matters is whether more of those 5,500 applicants move from workshops into ventures, from ventures into growth companies, and from growth companies into the ones shaping Abu Dhabi’s next decade of innovation. That is the direction Initiate is now building toward.

Get Involved

If you are exploring an idea, sharpening a concept, looking to develop practical startup skills or hoping to meet others at a similar stage of the journey, Initiate’s workshops offer practical insights, hands-on learning and opportunities to connect with experienced venture builders and fellow founders.

Learn more about the Hub71 Initiate Programme »