Entrepreneur · Advisor · Angel Investor
For most of my life, knowing things was the edge. It isn't anymore. What stays scarce is trust, judgment, and the people who can connect worlds that don't otherwise meet.
Between Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Between owners and engineers. Between what a market demands and what a culture allows.
The one conviction everything else follows from.
Intelligence just got cheap. Trust, judgment, and the bridges between worlds didn't come down with it.
For little money a month you can now get hold of knowledge companies used to poach specialists from the best universities for. Anyone who could never get near it is suddenly in the game, and I think that is good news. But what everyone has gives no one an edge. That belongs to whoever builds it deeper into a real operation than anyone else — and who brings what no machine delivers: judgment before the situation is clear. A feel for the people you are dealing with. An understanding of how things work in worlds that otherwise never meet. None of that comes on a subscription.
I grew up between worlds — Iranian roots, a European home — and learned early to read people across the lines that usually divide them. That instinct became the work: building transnational teams, companies and investments across DACH, the Gulf and Asia, where the distance others avoid is exactly where the value is.
Vienna · Between worlds
Three ways to work with me.
A sparring partner to founders, boards and C-level — sitting with them to map where a company's real value and knowledge sit, where the future threatens it and where it opens something up, then building on that with the right technology so decades of work are ready for what comes next.
From first idea to operating company — built alongside founders with my own bench of experts, trusted for decades.
Early and hands-on — backing uncut diamonds at pre-seed and seed, with smart money and a team founders can plug in from day one.
Longer thoughts, for when a post isn't enough.
Featured Essay
On what still has value once raw knowledge costs nothing.
Where I think the real value is moving now that knowledge is free — written from the companies I actually run between Vienna and the Gulf, the jewellery brand I started because of what AI is doing to everything else, and what I've learned about which bridges hold and which get commoditised.
A selection — one principle: bridges between markets and technologies.
Founder & Managing Director
Operational growth partner — tech, sourcing and management across DACH, MENA and Asia.
Co-Founder & CEO
Applied AI for real industries — a production-AI lab.
Co-Founder & Managing Partner
A modern fine-jewellery brand — craft meets contemporary design.
Prokurist & Group Board Member
Austrian IT group — data centres, digitalisation and software development.
Selected — further ventures & advisory roles by introduction
Published internationally, mostly peer-reviewed.
A. Martin · M. Allagha · Y. Misnikov
In Advances in the Human Side of Service Engineering · Springer, Cham · 2021
M. Allagha · O. Kruschitz · K. Voss · S. Binder · K. Truckenthanner
Fourth Place Best Paper Award — ISSIP HSSE Conference 2022
In The Human Side of Service Engineering · AHFE Open Access · 2022
C. Leitner · M. Allagha · J. Krenjova · K. Reinsalu · C. Stiefmüller
In Advances in the Human Side of Service Engineering · Springer, Cham · 2020
Founder · Registered non-profit, Vienna · Since 2017
Politikos is a non-partisan platform that makes democracy accessible — political content in language everyone understands, and a real voice for citizens, especially young people, who have the biggest stake in what comes next. Its work spans democracy education, direct democratic participation, and transparency in politics.
Started as an idea in 2015 and founded in 2017, with a startup mindset: to break the distance between people and politics and make participation approachable. It meets young Europeans (16–29) where they already are — plain-language explainers, moderated forums in Vienna and online across Europe, and an AI assistant that answers everyday questions about democracy, elections and the EU.
How I earn trust — and keep it.
Trust is the one thing AI didn't make cheap — so I build it the slow way.
Everyone has the same models, strategies and answers now. What still decides outcomes is judgment under uncertainty, follow-through when it stops being convenient, and getting the right people into one room. That's the work — long before a deal, and long after it closes.
I've built since 2015 — early, often before the rules existed for what I was making. I'm a builder by nature, driven, but with a code: humanity, loyalty, honesty, the long game over the loud one, and the discipline to say no to noise and protect what matters.
If your next move connects worlds — markets, cultures, technologies — I'd like to hear about it.
Both reach me directly.
