Alvaro Abella

Alvaro Abella General Information

Biography

Mr. Alvaro Abella serves as Managing Director at Gulf Capital. He serves as a Board Member at Vezeeta. With over twenty years of experience across Europe, the Americas, and the MENA region and with a strong focus on tech-related investments, Mr. Abella has worked across transaction execution, post-acquisition management, and advisory roles. Before Gulf Capital, he co-founded BECO Holdings, a Dubai-based early-stage investment firm focused on digital businesses in the MENA region, where he led local investments into regional leaders such as Careem, Vezeeta, and SellAnyCar. The investment into Careem delivered the largest tech-related exit in the MENA region when Uber, the US-listed competitor, bought the business for $3.1 billion, generating a +10x return for BECO, which returned the whole capital of the fund from that single investment. Additionally, Mr. Abella led several co-investment programs alongside existing investors as well as international growth investors (mainly the US). Before BECO, Mr. Abella held positions with Diamond Cluster International, Dubai, Value Partners SpA., Italy, and Booz Allen & Hamilton, Europe. Mr. Abella received an M.B.A. from MIT Sloan School of Management, and a dual degree (German & Spanish) in Business Administration from ICADE in Spain and FH-Reutlingen in Germany.