Hattaf Ansari grew up in an entrepreneurial family based in the UAE, but he probably wouldn’t tell you that. Hyper-ambitious and well connected, Hattaf won entrepreneurship awards since he was 13 and worked for a self-made billionaire straight out of university. Yet, he probably wouldn’t tell you any of this either.
Now, having launched a venture fund at 30, Hattaf still believes that rather than telling people what you can do, it’s better to show it instead. It is the sort of drive that inevitably brought him to the ecentre at Massey University.
When Hattaf was working as a senior accountant at Publicis Group, he knew he still had two things to do: travel and get his master’s degree. Massey University’s business and finance master’s programme would serve both ambitions. In 2016, he began studying while taking opportunities to explore New Zealand’s startup ecosystem.
Attitudes towards risk-taking are very different in the Middle East. It is a collectivist culture, meaning that families share in both profits and risks. There is an expectation to do what is safe and predictable for the collective. So, if someone wanted to start a business, the potential failure rests on the family instead of the individual. Hattaf wanted to see how far he could go without the help of his family. He wanted to deserve his success.
So, he began by interning. Hattaf connected with the startup Bill and Box, a company at their market validation phase with ecentre, to learn more about Kiwi businesses from a founder’s perspective.
He then continued his affiliation with ecentre, running qualitative research on investor behaviour to understand more about early-stage funding in New Zealand. New Zealand’s smaller market made it easier to survey investors directly, and the results shone a light on the issue with the available data: it is not generalisable. His research was published, well-acclaimed, and its insights are used today in ecentre’s Sprint programmes.
After graduating in 2017, Hattaf used the connections made through his research to break into venture funding — a difficult feat when there were only a few early stage funds in New Zealand. A meeting with the CEO of New Zealand Venture Investment Fund led to a role as an investment analyst for two years.
When a government policy passed allocating an additional $300 million for businesses, Hattaf was invited by a colleague to start a new venture fund. In May 2019, AmpliPHI Ventures was born. Hattaf hopes AmpliPHI Ventures will be the most globally connected fund in New Zealand, potentially connecting New Zealand with opportunities in the wider Middle East.
Hattaf has since arrived back on UAE’s radar since the start of this fund. In late 2019, Hattaf spoke on a panel at Sharjah’s Entrepreneurship Festival, a festival celebrating entrepreneurship in UAE and encouraging tolerance in risk-taking. He shared his experiences in New Zealand, talking up our country on an international stage and shining a light on the massive opportunities available here.
Remaining ‘hyper-ambitious’ as always, Hattaf is only getting started. And this is something he will tell you.
