Hi, my name is Oussama Ammar.

I was born in Lebanon in 1986 and work at The Family, which I created in 2013. I live in London, Paris & Berlin. Previously, I also lived a bit in San Francisco, Hong Kong & Sao Paulo. And a long time ago, I studied Philosophy.

I have 4 brothers, 1 sister, 6 nieces, & 3 nephews that I love a lot. I share my life with an amazing woman who is a model, a playmate, an entrepreneur & a DJ.

Elsewhere:

  • I was once pretty active on Facebook — you can stalk my past;
  • I’m pretty bored with Twitter but I do some nice retweets & make a few rare tweets or comments;
  • LinkedIn is my propaganda channel of choice because smilies & memes gives you lots of reach;
  • I enjoy Instagram a lot and share bits of my personal life there;
  • You can read more of my thoughts and my thinking in my newsletter.

What I’ve done at The Family:

  • I’ve helped fundraise more than $700M for startups in our portfolio;
  • I’ve participated in M&A, IPOs & lots of structural crisis management across every startup stage;
  • I’ve been named to the Forbes 30 under 30;
  • I’ve advised many startup CEOs, including the co-founders of iconic companies like Payfit, Agricool and Algolia;
  • I built Koudetat and did a lot of videos for Youtube, as well as tons of podcasts and articles. I also wrote a book;
  • I’ve been a member of the Global Tech Panel, appointed by Frederica Mogherini alongside Bill Gates, Tom Fletcher, Brad Smith, Megan Smith, Borge Brende and Risto Siilasmaa as co-members;
  • I’ve spoken at more than 100+ conferences for CEOs & executive committees;
  • I’ve advised the French government & multiples European institutions about Entrepreneurship Policy, including by participating in the Defense G20 on cybersecurity and new global threats.

What I did in my previous lives:

  • I made money for the first time when I was 12 years old by selling a website — journalists love to say that’s when I built my first company. After years of repeating to them that it was just a website, I gave up;
  • I did a lot of opportunistic things in my teenage years - buying low, selling high. Lots of different kinds of stuff, including a lot of stock trading (and nothing illegal, I promise). It was so much fun;
  • I built a company called Hypios where I had very bad investors and made a bunch of terrible mistakes. The biggest mistake was getting to 50 employees without having any product-market fit. I think I developed a low tolerance for bullshit thanks to this experience;
  • To make a living, I did some high level consulting for executive committees on innovation, the future, and many other things that they never listened to;
  • In 2010, I discovered angel investing on www.angel.co and my life changed. After 3 years in the amateur leagues, in 2013 with Alice Zagury, Nicolas Colin & Balthazar de Lavergne, I decided to go pro.