Investopia Bridge 2026 Hosts Eight Roundtables on Capital, SMEs and Innovation
The Abu Dhabi event covered family-office capital allocation, SME financing, digital assets, electric mobility and impact investing across eight sessions.
Karim El-Sayed Karim El-Sayed covers company news, policy and regulation across the UAE and wider MENA for Anecdoted, with a focus on how new rules and licences reshape how startups operate. karim@anecdoted.com
Eight roundtables at Investopia Bridge 2026 put ministers, investors, executives and founders in the same rooms in Abu Dhabi to work through where capital is flowing and what is holding companies back. The event ran at the Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi on Saadiyat Island, framed around resilience in a shifting global economy.
Growth at established UAE firms, small and medium-sized enterprises, and digital financial infrastructure were among the threads running across the sessions.
Next50 puts established UAE firms in the room
Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, who holds the UAE economy and tourism portfolio and co-chairs Investopia, joined the Next50 roundtable, "Unlocking the Next Phase of Growth," alongside founders and chief executives of long-established Emirati companies. Access to capital, expansion into new markets, financing and partnerships framed the discussion. His argument: businesses need to reshape their models around economic and technological shifts, build products and services that match changing demand, and sharpen how they compete regionally and internationally.
Next50 is an Investopia Communities initiative. It links UAE business leaders with government bodies, investors and financial institutions hunting for growth and expansion.
Uzbekistan, innovation and SME financing
A session titled "UAE and Uzbekistan: Connecting Capital with Opportunity" paired Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi, the UAE's Minister of Investment and an Investopia co-chair, with Laziz Kudratov, Uzbekistan's Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade. Energy, tourism, infrastructure, mining, chemicals, healthcare, banking and logistics came up.
UAE and Uzbekistan: Connecting Capital with Opportunity
Innovo ran "From Pilots to Commercialization: A Global Agenda for Innovation in the Built Environment," examining how artificial intelligence, data and investment partnerships can push new technology into commercial use across construction, real estate and infrastructure.
Hal and SC Ventures, part of Standard Chartered, hosted "SMEs: Today's Challenges, Tomorrow's Opportunities," covering financing, customers, technology, logistics and cross-border expansion.
Klickl organised "From Digital Assets to Digital Financial Infrastructure," which took in stablecoin settlement, institutional access to digital assets, governance and cross-border financial plumbing.
Family offices, electric mobility and impact
"Strategic Capital for a Changing World: How Family Offices Build Resilience and Create Value Through Capital Allocation" looked at liquidity management and long-term investment strategy, with capital moving across traditional industries, artificial intelligence and private markets.
The Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, working with the Ministry of Economy and Tourism, held "Electric Mobility in the UAE: From Adoption to the Circular Economy." Charging infrastructure, battery reuse and recycling, component recovery and public-private partnerships were on the table.
Majra – National CSR Fund hosted the "Impact Investment Lab," which examined disclosure standards, risk-sharing mechanisms and how impact gets measured, along with the prospect of a federal framework for impact investing in the UAE. What emerged from that session is expected to feed into Majra's forthcoming National Impact Investment Report.
