Homegrown Ventures GP explains why he’s leaning into the homegrown angle with his new VC fund

Nader Amiri (LinkedIn) has spent most of his career inside the consumer machine, from FMCG giants like Unilever and Coca-Cola to building and exiting his own grocery startup El Grocer. Now, he’s on the other side of the table, backing the next wave of brands coming out of the region.

As general partner at Homegrown Ventures, Amiri is focused on a gap he says has long existed in MENA: hands-on support for founders in the FMCG space. The firm has recently closed an oversubscribed USD 22.8 mn fund to back “better-for-you” consumer brands, as part of a broader wager that local brands are no longer niche but gaining structural ground.

Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of business questions just for good measure. This week, we spoke with Amiri about the rise of homegrown brands, what’s driving the shift, and how he structures his day. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

EnterpriseAM: Take us back to the start. What led to the creation of Homegrown Ventures?

Nader Amiri: After exiting my startup and transitioning the business, I started thinking about what’s next. My partner Ahmad and I were constantly speaking with founders, and we realized there’s a fundamental gap in the market when it comes to supporting founders in the FMCG space.

Founders would approach us for funding or support, and that led us to ask: why weren’t they going to funds, ventures, incubators, or accelerators? We quickly learned that kind of specialized support doesn’t really exist in MENA, let alone in the UAE. So we thought, having gone through the experience of being operators and founders in the sector ourselves, maybe we could be the spark for the ecosystem and help founders get the fuel they need to accelerate their businesses.

E: What are you seeing on the ground when it comes to local brands gaining share? What’s driving that shift?

NA: We’ve been amazed. The shift started during Covid and has been building up since then. Covid broke a lot of what we call autopilot behaviors. Before it, we were used to shopping and buying certain things in certain ways. Then people were stuck at home, trying new platforms and discovering new products.

That’s when people started discovering local brands and trying to support the local community. Given wider geopolitical developments across the region, that evolved into a bigger shift toward homegrown brands. It became more of a community movement, with people realizing there are a lot of great, high-quality, modern brands coming out of the region that are better suited to our taste and that understand our behaviors better.

E: What about when supply chain disruptions — like the ones happening now — hit? What happens then, for local brands especially, and what’s hardest to localize?

NA: There is still a heavy reliance on imports — for finished goods as well as raw materials and packaging. But we saw brands face challenges in the first couple of weeks and then start finding alternative routes, whether through Oman, Saudi, or air freight. It might cost more, but the demand didn’t stop. Interestingly, the ones that acted faster were the ones that captured more share — and that was especially true for local brands. They had their finger on the pulse and were able to react faster.

E: What convinced you this is the right moment to back “better-for-you” consumer brands?

NA:Part of it is personal. We want to back products we actually believe in and would give to our families. So, we decided to put our money where our mouth is and back purpose-driven businesses.

Another factor was looking at the trends. Since Covid, people have become much more aware of what they’re eating — becoming more conscious about ingredients and proactively choosing to switch whenever they can. It’s still not a mass market yet, but consumers are increasingly looking for products that prioritize health and wellness.

The challenge has been accessibility and awareness, but once people discover these products, they become regular customers almost immediately.

E: Do you see this shift to local brands as structural, or could it reverse?

NA: In the last three or four situations globally or regionally, we’ve only seen it increase at every juncture. The only factor in favor of multinationals is scale (of pricing, distribution, and awareness), which local brands still need time to build. But once people find them, the conversion, adoption, and loyalty rates are higher. So we see it as a mid- to long-term trend that, overall, is going up.

E: Does the current regional backdrop change how you invest?

NA:Not much, to be honest. Maybe to a certain extent, we’re just looking more closely at which categories are more resilient. In these moments, people tend to turn toward simpler indulgences like personal care or food, so we look at which products have been more resilient and decide whether to double down on those or invest in new ones in similar categories.

E: Switching gears now — what does your morning routine look like?

NA: I’m a morning person. I usually get up around 5am, do some light exercise like walking or having a light gym session, and then fit in a bit of meditation — even if it’s just 10-15 minutes to disconnect the mind. I have five cats, so I need to spend some time with them; otherwise, they won’t let me work for the rest of the day.

I start my workday at 7am, and the first two hours are for planning, strategizing, and deep work. I follow the “eat the frog” concept, doing the most difficult thing in the morning when you have the mental bandwidth and fewer interruptions. After that, meetings usually start from 9, and the rest of the day goes from there.

E: What does a typical workday look like once things get going?

NA: It’s a mix of supporting portfolio companies, evaluating new investments, and staying close to what’s happening in the ecosystem by speaking with retailers, distributors, and consumers to understand behavior on the ground. We also spend time thinking about the broader ecosystem — not just individual companies, but where the structural gaps are and how we can help address them.

E: What’s next for you, personally and professionally?

NA:Personally, I look forward to a summer holiday. I don’t know where, how, or when, but hopefully sometime soon — we all deserve it after the months we’re going through.

Professionally, we just closed the fund, and we are oversubscribed, so we have a larger pool of funds that we’re looking to deploy. The focus now is on accelerating that deployment and selecting which four or five prospects we get into this year. At the same time, it’s about supporting our portfolio companies in a deeper way and leveraging AI more and more for building teams and expertise from the ground up in a more productive and agile way.

Nader’s recommendations

What he’s reading: Antifragile by Nassim Taleb, a book on how systems can benefit from disorder and chaos. “The more time passes, the more relevant it becomes,” Nader said.

Best advice he’s received: Design for success.