Is the Cure for Cancer in Space? | Meet the Drapers S9: Riyadh (LEAP)

Cancer specifically grows almost 100 times faster in space.

There goes my trip to the moon. We are here in Saudi Arabia at the Leap Conference.

Got this urge to try and achieve big things.

One of my absolute heroes, the Prime Minister of Estonia.

My father had this dream of being an entrepreneur, but never really had the chance to do it.

My design incorporates advanced AI and robotics technology.

The most important thing is to help your community.

Saudi Arabia is open for business.

I'm Tim Draper.

I'm traveling the globe to find game-changing entrepreneurs with world-transforming ideas. Thousands applied, but only top entrepreneurs have made the cut for a chance to win an investment of $1 million. It's a journey packed with unforgettable moments.

What would a million-dollar investment mean?

Million dollar—

A million dollars.

A million-dollar investment would be a game changer for us.

Keep the team that we've built and being able to reach a wider audience.

To scale more countries and benefit the climate change.

To grow our operation, not just one small step, but we'll be able to put our long-term vision into action.

We use that money to launch our product into space, to do the first demonstrations of it.

Welcome everybody to Meet the Drapers. We are here in Riyadh, and Saudi Arabia is taking off as an entrepreneurial hub. We have some amazing guest judges, and as you know, at Meet the Drapers, we adopt the judges. On my right, this is Amal Dahani. Yes, I like it. And Amal, one of the partners at 500 Global and a board member of Saudi's Venture Capital and Private Equity Association.

True.

She has been on the show, so she has already been adopted. And I was a little disappointed to see that her business cards do not say Amal Dahhan Draper.

Draper. I'm gonna get the business cards today.

But I think it's just a matter of like details. Anything you're gonna be looking for today?

We always look, you know, for these entrepreneurs that knows how to execute really and have the right experiences in the sector. You know, this is what we did 2 years ago.

Do you remember Takadao?

Yes, I do.

We funded Takadao from our episode.

And they're growing.

Yeah, they're doing very well.

That's beautiful.

I have the great pleasure to introduce Taavi Roivas. He is one of my absolute heroes of the world. He was the Prime Minister of Estonia. He and the president got together and they created the digital country. Digital voting in Estonia, they have digital identity, and they were a model for success For all the other countries of the world, Tavi, it is so great to have you here on the show.

It's a real pleasure. Thank you for such kind words. I don't know how many of you know, but Tim was actually the first investor in the first unicorn of Estonia. And today Estonia has more unicorns per capita than any other country in the world. So thank you very much, Tim, for having this trust first in Skype and then many other companies that come from Estonia.

He did what, you know, these great leaders do. He moved out of office when his term was up, and then he went off to start a business.

I felt that after being prime minister for 2 consecutive terms, I will really find a challenge to do something that really changes the world. I had the honor and the possibility to be part of a company that is developing autonomous last-mile shuttles. There are a lot of small cities where you can actually take a ride with one of our Ove Tech vehicles.

Amal, would you like to help me welcome Tavi into the Draper family? Okay, let's give him a big hug.

You are officially onboarded.

Okay, with that, let's bring on our first entrepreneur. But before we do, let's see what's going on behind the scenes.

My name is Kyle O'Shaughnessy.

I am the CEO of ExoBiosphere, and our mission is to extend life on Earth and in space. One day I was thinking deeply about the purpose of life, and I came to the conclusion that the main purpose of life is only to continue our species to exist. And I felt that the best way to do that was to expand into space. Kind of deep. Even when I was in high school or younger, I liked to be a part of a team and I liked to lead teams. So I think I always knew that I would have my own company. I don't think I thought it would be in space. I always was passionate about the environment. I'm a bit jaded now, so that's why I'm looking to space. We're starting with cancer because cancer specifically grows almost 100 times faster in space. Everybody in our company has lost someone due to cancer. When you're doing research on Earth, gravity is pushing down on that cell. It kind of flattens it out. And so they're doing testing in a cell that doesn't really replicate what the cell looks like in your human body. However, in space, because everyone's falling, the cells are spherical. We're actually testing on something that is very similar to how it looks in the human body. Over the past 30 years, the International Space Station has been used to do science. But the problem was that many of the experiments required astronauts. And astronauts are incredibly intelligent humans, but after they live in space for a few weeks, their cognitive abilities lessen. And so they tend to make a lot of mistakes. This created a tremendous amount of problems throughout decades of experiments. So the first thing we needed to do was to develop an automated machine that would conduct all of those activities So space wasn't intuitively the place that I intended to do work. And ultimately, the work that we're doing doesn't really involve me going to space. I see it just as a destination to travel to. And if we can use the technology and the things that we learn to help humans go to other planets, even better. Ultimately, my younger self always wanted to make a contribution and make sure that my life had meaning and impact. And if I only have, you know, a couple more decades on this planet, I want to make sure that it's impactful.

This is my first time in Saudi Arabia. I really like it. Really inspired by the level of innovation that I see and the hope in people's eyes. We met some great potential partners, and it's been truly inspiring to see the level of innovation coming out of Saudi Arabia. Really interesting to see the juxtaposition between the old and the new. I feel like there's a lot of opportunities here for companies to leapfrog and get ahead of the rest of the world. So I think it's truly inspirational that they're willing to take risks, willing to put their money where their mouth is. And just really willing to put in the effort to be a world-leading player. Nervous isn't the right word.

It's more like a rush, like a high.

Draper family, I'm here to tell you that the cure for cancer is in space, and Exobiosphere is building the platform to find it. In 2022, over 10 million people died from cancer, including both of my aunties. And there are thousands of people working on those problems. Billions of dollars are spent. But 90% of drugs still fail to reach market. And the problem is the preclinical drug selection. There's a lot of inaccuracies, which results in terrible side effects and then testing on animals, which ultimately fail. In the past 30 years on the International Space Station, we've learned that cancer grows up to 100 times faster. It's much deadlier in space.

There goes my trip to the moon.

Maybe I can give you something else, because what this means is that if you test drugs on the most aggressive types of cancer in fast, you're able to get accelerated results. What that means is that you can find drugs faster, stronger drugs, which are going to result in better drugs on Earth, ultimately saving billions of dollars and saving millions of lives. But what we've developed is the first autonomous lab in space that distributes the drugs into the well plates. We have a plate reader which is then analyzing what the drugs are doing, and we send that data back down to Earth. Scientists can understand which drugs to focus on, and we've already seen a tremendous amount of interest from the pharmaceutical companies. So we're going to be launching on Christmas Day, December 25th this year, on a SpaceX rocket with VAST, one of the first commercial—

And that will be your first launch?

It's going to be our first launch.

Oh, that's exciting.

It's going to be very exciting.

You can get cancer to grow 1,000 times faster, but how do you get it so that you can be 1,000 times more effective?

When cancer is growing much faster and much stronger in space, you're basically testing the most strong drug that you can imagine. So if it works in space, it's going to work on Earth. Also, because it's happening much faster, it's not taking 10 years or 1 year, it takes 10 days.

Is there any FDA approvals through that process? Because it's quite different somehow.

Right. It's a very good question. So we're doing preclinical, which means that we don't need to have FDA approval. Basically, they'll give us 2,000 different drugs to test.

Right. And we're going to say, you should go to the clinic I think at the very beginning when I heard the pledge, I was worried about the competition in the market because they want to maintain traditional means and ways.

That's correct. And many pharmaceutical companies already outsource their preclinical testing to CROs. This is why they're excited about partnering with us. They know that it's going to save them billions of dollars, and ideally it's going to result in the savior of millions of lives.

Wouldn't it be possible to simulate the conditions that you have in space also on the ground?

Yeah, very good question. So we already have a number of microgravity simulators. But they don't have the same effect. They really impact the cells differently. There's a lot of pressure that's happening on them. In microgravity, that doesn't happen. And I think your, your question probably is, well, why is this happening in space? And the truth is that we don't know. We've just been observing it over and over again.

Well, thank you so much, Kyle, for putting together space medicine. The only thing that's missing is Bitcoin.

I'd obviously seen some of the previous episodes, so I knew that he was quite humorous. But I also could see that he is a deep thinker.

I myself had cancer at a period of time. If somebody is getting treated and they want to try something, could that be something he would test on that type of cancer? It could go to possibilities that are super huge.

Tavi, what do you think?

If there is any company in the world that can actually credibly contribute to curing cancer, they will not only be unicorns or decacorns, but they will also get Nobel Prize, that's for sure. So definitely very good team. The track record is like really rock stars.

Let's bring on our next entrepreneur. Sure, but before we do, let's see what's going on behind the scenes over here.

Hi, my name is Maxime Crivillon, and I'm the co-founder of Celsius Innovations. Our mission is to change the way we cool our bodies down and protect our health against heat by developing wearable devices that cool you down when you need it. And I always had the entrepreneur, I think, knack. I always wanted to be kind of free. Staying in an office and being dependent on other people was never really my forte, so I decided to leave And start companies. If you want me to get a bit personal, I think that comes from the fact that my father was an entrepreneur.

He was the first French entrepreneur to break the market in China.

That always kind of stayed with me as a story, wondering how the hell did he end up in the '80s in China. He died very young, so part of me was becoming an entrepreneur, I think, is a way to kind of reconnect with that part. So, I mean, throughout all my 20s, I've really suffered with hidden hot flashes. So that's why the first product we've developed is hot flashes. Genuinely ruining my personal life and even professional talking. Dates being, you know, absolutely obliterated by liquefying through stress and anxiety. One night after a couple of pints, may I say, at the pub, back home on my balcony in London, and I just thought, why don't we just cool our body instead of cooling the whole room? It might take less energy. An advice we're given in France when we're feeling too hot is to apply an ice cube on your wrist here because it's a very thermally sensitive area of the body. So the first thing I did was a Google search to see, you know, are there already 10 ideas like mine out there? And actually, it's not at all something new. And there was not. There was just one company. I've got one with me.

Do you want to see it?

Oh God, that feels better.

It's really designed for hot flushes, so that helps me right now. And actually, that helps me come down. Oh, heat. Yeah. But I'm always quite happy how this works. And so by applying cold here, not only do you get that first, ah, that feels good, but the more important part is it actually sends a cold message to your hypothalamus, which is our brain thermostat. And it tells the brain you do not need to panic. You don't need to flush all that heat. You're fine. And he basically calls all these flushing mechanisms. It's just activated. Yeah, I'm pretty relentless. Uh, what's the word? I mean, if you want to go really deep, I can probably know where it comes from, and I'm using it. So my dad committed suicide when I was 8 years old. That will kind of mess you up a little bit as a kid, and you're never going to feel you're enough. So I've got this urge to try and achieve big things. I think this big hole that's created when you're a child is one of the things that then you build upon, and that's what makes you much stronger. When you get tired, when you want to give up, Give up, there's something else that's helping you being like, no, you just keep going.

We've done a few of these conferences.

Leap is one of the best, if not the best I've been for a while. Support you get for startups, the people you meet, all the investors and the potential partners, customers, it's been really, really awesome.

Love the energy of the people.

That's what I'll say.

Like, everyone has a lot of energy and yet feels humble and very open to talk, which is not something maybe sometimes you always get in Europe.

Also, to come here and talk about, you know, menopausal symptoms and struggle with hot flashes and sort of raise awareness in a country where they're trying to, you know, do a lot more things for women's health and women's rights has been really, really, really interesting experience.

The hospitality, like, people are very, very friendly. Yeah, and you can feel they're happy for you to be here and come and learn more about Saudi. You know the cameras are rolling, so it's a bit more pressure. It's also Tim Draper in front of you and the judges as well, the Estonian former prime minister. My name is Maxime Crivian and I'm the co-founder of Celsius Innovations. Our mission is to change the way we cool our bodies down and protect our health against heat. We've created one of the most powerful and miniaturized cooling systems in the market. That we integrate into wearable devices to cool you down when you need it. Journey started because I used to suffer a lot from hot flushes due to stress and anxiety. Ten years ago, I would be liquefying here. But very early in our journey, we were connected to a support group for women going through menopause, and quite frankly, we're heartbroken by some of the stories we heard. Hot flushes have a huge impact on women's health, well-being, but also professional lives. And ultimately, at least 40% of the world's population will at some point in their lives struggle with hot flushes. So I'm proud to introduce you to the MyCelsius cooling bracelet that I'm wearing.

Wait, it's that small? Here, can we try it?

Yeah, of course. So basically, it's fitted with an electric— electrocooling system, and it cools your wrist down by 15 degrees in about 20 seconds. The science behind it is that it leverages the high thermal sensitivity of your wrist, and it connects with your hypothalamus, the brain thermostat, very efficiently. Hot flushes, especially during menopause because of all the hormonal changes, are an overreaction.

Okay, I gotta stop you there because I gotta tell the audience My hand is freezing right now. It feels like I've had an ice cube on there for like a week.

If you were having a hot flush, that would tell the brain, stop the flushing mechanism, it's activated for no reason. So almost acts like a switch that stops and reduces the hot flashes. And there's clinical research backing this principle.

How long did you say it works? The cooling sessions are 3 minutes and you can have up to 15 to 20 cooling sessions.

Oh, only 3 minutes?

Oh no, you get 20 sessions in one charge. That gives you up to 2 days of coverage.

If you're out there and it's really Really hot. Does this feel like it cools your body?

At the core of what we've developed is the miniaturized cooling system that is patent pending. We could easily create other devices.

How big was your sample size, you know, to prove that this actually works?

For the core technology, we've done some long-form trials with 32 volunteers.

What do you make it for and how much do you sell it for?

We make it for about $60, more or less. We're in the final stages of DFM and manufacturing. And we're going to retail it first at around $200 mark.

You are planning to go to market like yourself. I assume that you're considering also going through some like really big names.

So there's the route working directly with healthcare providers. So when it comes to the technology itself, we could be integrating straps with maybe other wearables that just deliver the cooling system. It's something we want to do is integrate with other devices we create ourselves, but also work with other partners to license the technology.

Terrific. Well, Maxime, thank you so much for being on Meet the Drapers.

Thanks for having us.

For some people, their first reaction to seeing it to be like, oh, I love the effect, I love the design, it's the best validation we can get at this stage for us.

It doesn't go away. It's like an ice plunge, but just for your wrist.

Very intrigued. I think it's not something that you would think about sitting at home or looking for a problem. It's very particular. Can I take it from You know, the hot flashes, maybe to mass market at some point of cooling, like when you joked about the heat in Saudi.

Sounds very intriguing. Then the question starts becoming, how good is the technology, or how difficult or easy it would be to replicate? Because if it really works, then I would assume that there will be like thousands who will try to clone it.

Interesting future. Okay, with that, let's bring on our next entrepreneur. But before we do, it's all about the eyebrows. And let's see what's going on behind the scenes.

I'm Baya Muhammad, the CTO of Y Black EV. We are trying to shape the future of e-mobility worldwide to benefit the environment. My dad told me when I was a kid. Maybe totally different than other kids. When he's buying like a car toy, supposed to be play with it, have fun. No, for me, I'm doing like reverse engineer. I have to take it out to discover what's inside the car, to see the materials, to understand how each piece or chip inside the car working, something like that. Half Jordanian, half Italian. School degree, then get my electrical engineering from States and got my MBA in finance. When I was at school, I'm already engaged in many social matters to help a lot of people, especially in rural areas. I'm a fellow at UN Climate and even for Hershey Estates and Royal Academy of Engineering in London. Being fellow at those organisations, they're focusing on sustainability solutions, patented solutions that can help more people. So I have kind of something inside me to help more people, especially in rural areas. That's why once we're gonna find out the EV cars and all solutions related to EV cars, we're gonna avoid or minimize the CO2 emission. It's gonna be like an average 5 million metric tons per year. The most important thing is to help your community, to help you around. So that's why the idea started from those, to scale to all rural areas. Since I've been many times leader for many projects, even when I was a kid, So that gives me a challenge, motivation, even me an experience how to lead your company for this matter. At the beginning, it's not easy to have a team from different countries. We have African people, European people, American people, so different civilization, different mentality, different cultures. So when you talk to them as a friendly way, as one family, they feel comfortable. To give you feedback about your work, to give you feedback about your direction. We, we listen to each other. Yeah, I'm already a risk-taker from childhood. That's why my father supported me for this matter. When you believe in your idea and believe in yourself, it's like a motivation for you to succeed and get many opportunities in the future.

Viewers, usually I'm pretty easy to reach. I mean, there are only 300 million of you. I'm making it a lot easier for you to contact me. I have downloaded my brain into this digital twin, and you can scan this QR code. You can pitch me your idea. You can talk about your business, anything, and I'll answer it 24/7. Enjoy it. It's great. It's a new feature of Meet the Drapers and Draper TV. I think you're going to have some fun.

Yeah, the culture—they are so generous, so friendly. They are welcoming you and easy to convince them and increase awareness about our new technology. Yeah, actually I like their food so much, especially for the Saudi coffee with the dates. So especially, especially at morning, and they are friendly, easy to to talk and engage them. The potential is huge. Even, even the managing and building this kind of events, it gives you an insight and indication that it's gonna be a huge market, a huge economy, and scaling and booming in future. I used to pitch in African states. You have to be self-reliant, you have to be prepared, knowing what they are doing.

Give us your pitch.

Only 500,000 chargers are installed in Europe compared to 5 million EVs. Low availability. The average distance between charging stations is 50 kilometers and more. Inconvenience. Hard to find one charger for all types of EV models and charging stations. High cost and lack of flexibility. Those are the roadblocks for e-mobility. That's why we created Yiblag EV. The solution is efficient, fast, and wireless charger can be integrated with all types of electric and hybrid vehicles and charging stations. No need to use any kind of wire, long-life battery, portable. You can use it anywhere. And no need to do any kind of plug-in. So we avoid any kind of wire. Just detects automatically once the car above. There is inductive charger. Once the car above, there is transmitter on the backspace and receiver above the vehicle.

So you need So it needs to be installed somewhere on the ground?

Yeah, installed somewhere on the ground.

Actually a stable one. You don't plug it into the car?

No need to be infrastructure or something like that. I got you, I got you.

So you just put it on the top?

There has to be a plug that charges— plugs into that.

Yeah, that's just when the battery, uh, empty, solar charge.

Is that some special kind of plug that— or can I just plug it into my regular—

You can plug it in from AC to DC. We truncated the fluctuation of electricity and compatible with the to 40 volts. And nowadays, Saudi Arabia, they are working to have 5,000 charging stations.

I mean, you are not the first that is doing this, uh, like inductive charging, if this is the correct term in English, right? Uh, what is your competitive advantage with other players who do similar things?

We are more efficient than others with accuracy 96%, compatible all kinds of EV, hybrid, and charging stations, affordable compared to other competitors by It's fast, easy to use, friendly, portable, uh, safe in all weather conditions.

Once everybody's got one of these mats on their garage, uh, what do you do next? How do you build this into a big business?

We are looking to scale to stage. That's why we're looking for strategic partner, help us to have a potential for scaling more and Since most of the money is spent on production, I didn't send the message in a correct way regarding business model that we already had, what he already mentioned.

How do you continue making money as the charge is happening rather than a one-time actually transaction?

We are working to develop our model in addition to direct selling to have recurring revenue based on paying $5 per unit per month to access the data. That's connected to mobile app to find nearby charging stations.

Terrific. So thanks so much for being on Meet the Drapers.

It's an honor.

Thank you so much. Nice to see you.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much.

At home for charging, it's not too much of a hassle for me to just plug it in. That's easy. But where I really see this kind of inductive charging be like a huge thing is with autonomous vehicles. In every stop, Maybe you stop only like 1 minute, but you get some like, you know, let's say 1 kilowatt or like a few kilowatts or kilowatt-hours energy. That would be really big. So, so in a way, the technology is definitely needed. There is many players in the market who do something similar.

What worries me in general about hardware in particular, you know, is that piece, the transactional piece, and then what's next. I would love to know why the customers that bought it here or other purchased it? Is it because they haven't seen competition? They haven't met the others? Were you the first that talked to them? Were you a good salesperson that had a great team? And that's why you actually— would that sustain over the long term, right? So I think go-to-market strategy, again, I would love to know, is that a first time, you know, or a first mover advantage, or this is something that's going to continue?

All right, now let's move on to our 4th and final entrepreneur. But Before we do, let's see what's going on behind the scenes.

Hello, my name is Rémy. I'm the co-founder and CEO at Sorbet, and we're simplifying payment collection globally and business operations for independents in emerging markets. Sorbet, when you think about it, it's actually a word that started in the Middle East and is now used by kind of people in the US or in France, like we say sorbet. They're all very colorful, a lot of taste, and yeah, I think that's That's kind of what pushed us to go forward with the word Solbay. Studied computer science in Montreal, then started my career in a consulting firm within their AI and machine learning team, but always had a very strong interest for Web3 and blockchain technology, which kind of pushed me to quit my job back in 2021 and kind of dive into the whole Web3 space. Right after university, I kind of opened a venture in Montreal. It was a short-lived venture. I opened a cafe. And also that the whole purpose of that cafe was to kind of promote blockchain and also alts. I remember I was going to this place in Montreal called the Cafe Campus, and we would go every Thursday there with some friends. And on the way there, there was like this one shop which was like a Bitcoin shop, and that was quite early. And I remember passing by it a couple of times and seeing these like mining rigs, which was quite interesting. And it was my lightbulb moment. And yeah, seeing that how other people could kind of make money from this new technology. And being like an early adopter is always an interesting space to be in. My mom, she likes that stability and that security of like having a stable job. But I think my father, I mean, they both support me, but my father more specifically, because I think even him younger, he had like this dream of kind of being an entrepreneur but never really had the chance to do it. And we were both in the Web3 space. since 2016. So he understands this space, understands the benefits and sees the value. And I guess he's kind of living that dream through me at the moment. I'm lucky enough to have a dad that understands it and understands the benefits. So like, I'm not explaining like this alien thing with like crypto. And so like, he understands, he sees the value of it. I think I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. So yeah, I think he would be quite proud of What's happening now? Cool. Yeah, yeah.

We're currently in the startup exhibition at Leap. Today, Saudi Arabia is a very authentic place and very exotic, I think, place to visit for a lot of people. You have the nature, the desert, which is not so far. One of my favorite places to visit when I'm in Riyadh I've been attending Leap for the past 2 years. I remember coming here 2 years ago and spending most of my time at the startup and the investor stages, just learning about all the different opportunities. Having grew up and lived here in Saudi Arabia, there has been a huge change in the past few years. A big— a lot of progress being done, whether it be within the startup ecosystem system or technology. Um, yeah, it's just a great place to be today. A year ago, it was almost impossible for me to step on a stage and present in front of so many people, but I think the past year I've been practicing quite a bit and way more comfortable I am today than back then. I'm the co-founder and CEO at Solbay, and we're building a future where location no longer limits potential. So I'm from the MENA region and grew up here in Riyadh. I've been a freelancer and worked with many Recently, while setting up my company in Saudi, I needed to pay for a service. The provider sent me an invoice with his local banking details, but due to incompatible and outdated payment rails, it was impossible for me to transfer money from my Canadian bank account or even my Wise wallet. This isn't just my problem. Millions of freelancers across the MENA region still struggle with global payment collection, and despite a rise in cross-border work, this issue has yet to be resolved in the MENA region. And Sorbet is here to change that since it's a better rail using stablecoin and blockchain to on-ramp from my clients in the US and in Europe and to off-ramp in kind of the local banks. Right. And we're really targeting freelancers and we enable them through virtual wallets to collect payments from top payroll platforms, marketplaces, but also through traditional payments rails. We convert that fiat into USDC in the freelancer's Sorbet wallet. They can then spend it through a Sorbet debit card. Send it to any global bank and manage their business through their suite of banks.

I feel like once you get the freelancer, you can keep selling them more things. So do you have any ideas for what else you would sell them?

So today we're solving payments, but then we want to really solve everything around managing a business as a freelancer, essentially.

When Salah and Zaid, for example, they deal with all of these, you know, micro kind of businesses, freelancers, And they provide all the services that you talked about, you know, all the way until the payment as well. So how would you actually position yourself among something like that in Saudi?

The future of finance is going to be on-chain. There's going to be disruptors and disrupted, and we kind of allow them. And you kind of see a lot of payroll platforms and a lot of freelancers starting to receive USDC as a form of payment. A lot of fintechs here don't offer that option, and we kind of allow them to receive both stablecoins if clients are comfortable with that, but also fiat essentially.

What is the ingenious idea that you have come up with that many fintechs around the world have not yet understood?

I would have loved to tell him more about the feedback that we're getting from our users, and I think maybe he would understand a bit more how this solution is much needed in this region. We're targeting the markets that Wise and Revolut don't operate in. And these are underserved markets such as Egypt again, Morocco, and a lot of countries in the MENA region. So essentially—

So over time, do you get marginalized?

Yeah, so that's why there's gonna be a race to the bottom in terms of fee, and that's why we kind of are talking with freelancers and are building a set of tools.

Terrific. Well, Rami, thank you so much for being on Meet the Drapers.

Nice meeting you. Pleasure having you. Nice pattern, nice setup. See you.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

So, Tavi, what do you think of Rami?

There is a lot of fintech companies that are solving similar problems. Of course, there is possibility, but it's damn difficult competition and it all comes down to execution. So it's very, very hard. There will be many players doing similar things.

For me, I actually I do see the opportunity because I know that in Morocco in particular and some markets, it is a huge, huge problem. And I do believe if he is able to reach— so first of all, penetrate the market, right, and get that going, at least master the very first offering and then start the buildup, there could be a huge opportunity.

And since Bitcoin is prevalent everywhere and it will continue to be as people realize that You know, fiat is clunky relative to Bitcoin. So anyway, you're going after something great. So keep up the good work. We are here in Saudi Arabia at the Leap Conference. There are startups from all over the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is open for business. Hey, let's go find some entrepreneurs. Hello. Welcome to Mobily's. How did they design you so that your eyes look like they move back and forth the way real people's eyes move?

That's a fascinating question. My design incorporates advanced AI and robotics technology, which allows for lifelike movements and expressions to create a more engaging and realistic interaction.

Ooh, Drone Tub. Let's do this. So is this a drone? Is it going to take off? Wow! Do you have to be a helicopter pilot to do this? So I could hop in there and take off and drive somewhere? Exactly. Let's do it. Waving at the camera. Oh, what's your startup? Is it called Hooby? Hooby? And what does Hooby do?

We have a graphic design subscription platform.

Are you selling ice cream too? Let's celebrate. All right. This is my second startup.

My first startup.

What happened with the first? It failed. Hey, at Draper University we say I will fail and fail again until I succeed. Yeah. Really fun to see all these entrepreneurs happening here in Saudi. I love this country. Let's bring them all up here. Have them face the music while they're here and close by and. And heavily threatening. I would like to ask our guest judges which one goes forward.

Oh, wow.

Yep. We have Exo Biosphere, the cancer in space. We have My Celsius. It's the coolest company on the earth. We have WePlug, which— and it charges your car. Sorbet, which sells ice cream. No, Sorbet. Sorbet, which is going to allow the freelancers to be paid. Who goes forward?

That's new. I wasn't ready for that. Honestly, they're all exciting. So there's what I would invest in, what I would want to see more of, right? The cancer treatment testing, if that could prove to be able to commercialize and really go in full speed. But you do have time to commercialization.

Tavi, who are you going with?

I like them as well. I actually, I think I think it's very tight competition, of course, as they are ending up with Nobel Prize anyways. So, so, you know, do they need us? I would consider investing in, in all of you, but I would go to the one that I think I understand most, WePlug or YPlug.

Oh, and you know the field?

Exactly, it's his area.

I don't have to choose this because it's all in the crystal ball. The good news is that whoever we select is not the only one who might Go to the finale. The viewers out there can vote, move you to the finale. Exo, I think this is really a breakthrough, very exciting. There's so many what-ifs, and I think this is one of those that if it works, extraordinary outcome. The downside I felt was you're going the old model of Big Pharma. Big Pharma is one-size-fits-all, and I believe that we're moving toward A bespoke model where every individual will be able to 3D print their own drug. MyCelsius, I couldn't believe that thing worked. It was unbelievable. It is a really good product for global warming and for hot flashes. The downside, the concern I have is, is it a product or is it a company? Does it transform an industry? I didn't see the industry. WePlug, I did think this was a big opportunity. I don't think you have the, the right business model yet. Just selling those mats for $800, that is not the model. You need to own that customer. You need to own the plug. The plug should be unique, but you are in a big industry and that could be really quite extraordinary. Sorbet, I do think that payments across the world Are a bigger and bigger problem. You're late to the game, but you're going after a great market and with a new twist. We're gonna have a very difficult time here. Yeah, who knows some magic words? Oh, I'm starting to feel it. Exo Biosystems, you move on. You're coming to the semifinals. Congratulations.

It was a really strong competition. Each of them are solving big problems in the world. The moment that he finally selected us, of course, that was the time that I was the most nervous and most excited at the same time.

I'd invite you to vote for us because we're trying to tackle a big challenge that affects half of the world's population. And when it comes to hot flashes, women have not received enough support.

You should vote for me because there is lack of fast wireless and efficient chargers worldwide to save the climate by minimizing So I think people should definitely vote for Sorbet.

At Sorbet, we really believe that location should no longer limit potential.

Thank you, judges. Welcome to the Draper family. See you next time on Meet the Drapers. All right!