Habib Haddad is a serial entrepreneur, early stage investor, and ‘startup activist.’ He is currently the President and Managing Director of the E14Fund that invests in spin-offs from MIT. Habib’s entrepreneurial journey started in 2004 when he founded an image based modeling software company, Mok3 (now Everyscape) as a venture... Read more
Habib Haddad is a serial entrepreneur, early stage investor, and ‘startup activist.’ He is currently the President and Managing Director of the E14Fund that invests in spin-offs from MIT.
Habib’s entrepreneurial journey started in 2004 when he founded an image based modeling software company, Mok3 (now Everyscape) as a venture backed spinoff from MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He served as its founding engineer until 2005.
In 2006 he founded Relief Lebanon to support relief efforts during the 2006 war in Lebanon. The grass root effort was feature by the “101 Stories to Tell” initiative by the UNDP in February 2009.
Habib founded Yamli in 2007, the leading Arabic transliteration and smart search engine. Yamli has been praised for empowering and re-energizing the Arabic language online. The company was acquired by Yahoo! in 2012.
In 2009 Habib teamed up with two other Middle East technology entrepreneurs to found YallaStartup. An NGO that fosters early stage entrepreneurship and startup creation, it was one of the first support organizations for MENA entrepreneurs.
From 2012 to 2016 he was the founding CEO of Wamda, a platform of programs and networks that aim to accelerate the entrepreneurship ecosystem across the MENA region. He also served as Venture Partner of Wamda Capital, a growth capital VC Fund with investments in startups like taxi-hailing app Careem, LittleBits, and Jamalon.
He currently serves as President and Managing Director of E14Fund, a fund that was born to commercialize leading innovations out of the MIT Media Lab by nurturing early-stage spin-offs. Positioned at the heart of the MIT startup ecosystem, the fund embodies the lab’s anti-disciplinary spirit, supporting companies at the intersection of technology, design, biology, engineering, and more. Current investments include bitcoin, wearable computing, tangible interfaces, smart cities, genomics, and more.
In addition to his role at E14Fund, Habib also holds a Research Affiliate position at the MIT Media Lab where he focuses on the science behind building a community. He is also an angel investor in the US and sits on boards of startups, nonprofits, and academic institutions. He has investment in startups like Circa, WillCall, Rally.org, and ProBueno.com.
Habib won numerous awards including the Creativity Award by the Arab Thought Foundation and Top Innovator Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review. In 2009, the World Economic Forum recognised Habib as a Young Global Leader, where he also sits as a Vice Chair on the Council of Innovation. in 2015 he was voted one of the Most Powerful 100 Arabs under 40. He speaks globally on entrepreneurship, innovation, disruptive technologies, and early stage development.