Interview With David Merry, General Partner, and Co-Founder of Kinetic Investments
David Merry started his entrepreneurial journey at 16, teaching himself to code and launching small websites that earned just enough to keep him experimenting. By 18, he’d built and sold his first company to Catena Media for enough to change his life. But instead of chasing Silicon Valley’s next unicorn, he did something different: he started hunting for founders in places other VCs ignore.
While most funds compete for polished pitches in saturated markets, Kinetic Investments backs scrappy founders in MENA, South America, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe. Kinetic’s portfolio is delivering a 7.2x TVPI and 26% realized IRR across 12 active companies, with only one exit so far. More importantly, they’ve built something rarer than good returns: a reputation for being the fund that actually shows up when founders need them most.
In this exclusive interview with Eqvista’s Founder Spotlight, David explains why he thinks the real AI revolution happens when technology becomes invisible, why his 18-person team has only two actual investors, and how being a founder first taught him to spot “the real thing” in a single glance.
David, you’ve had quite a journey from building your first company as a teenager to creating Kinetic Investments. How did those early experiences shape your approach to venture capital?
At 16, I started teaching myself to code and launching small websites that earned just enough to keep me experimenting. At 18 I built my first ‘official’ company in the iGaming space. We had no outside capital or advisors, just organic revenue, a lot of trial and error and ad hoc planning. When Catena Media acquired us in 2015, I stayed on for a period to manage the UK arm, which grew to a team of 200+. It was quite the ride over a short period!
Those years shaped Kinetic more than I probably realise. Being a founder first gave me a deep empathy for the journey – what it feels like to bet the house, to sweat payroll, to make it up as you go along. But it also trained my eye to spot the real thing: the founders who have true determination, clarity, and the hunger to build. I believe we can see it in a glance and look far beyond the presentation.
We’ve also built Kinetic to operate like a startup itself – lean, fast, and hands-on. We don’t just write cheques and disappear. We embed ourselves in our portfolio companies, pushing hard every day to help them hit their next milestone. That founder’s DNA runs through everything we do.
What inspired you to start Kinetic, and how did you take those first steps?
I wish I could say it started with some grand, inspirational story – but it was a lot more organic.
After my earn-out, I found myself missing the early chaos and also had more capital at hand. So I started angel investing. It scratched the itch for a while, but I learned quickly that quality deal flow doesn’t just fall into your lap – you have to earn it and you need a brand to attract it. Second, the ventures I was backing were all facing similar challenges. None of them needed a full-time HR manager (as an example) on their own, but collectively, they did. That’s when the penny dropped.
We started assembling a small team to provide hands-on, high-quality support across the portfolio. Not consultants – actual operators who could embed and execute, with zero margin in it for Kinetic other than the company growth, so our incentives aligned with the founders.
And just like that, Kinetic was born. It was largely a natural evolution driven by curiosity and a desire to stay close to the action!
What types of companies and sectors are you most interested in and what qualities do you look for in early-stage companies?
We’re especially focused on the interface layer of AI – the part where real people actually experience the technology. A lot of funds are chasing infra and model plays right now, but that end of the market’s getting crowded fast, and we think the real transformation happens when AI becomes invisible – when it just works in the background to make everyday life smoother, simpler, and a bit more magical.
We’re backing founders building consumer-grade experiences powered by AI. That’s where you see the leap, not just incrementally better tools, but totally new ways of doing things. Think fintech products that don’t just digitise forms, but remove paperwork entirely. Health apps that adapt dynamically to each user. Legal tools that don’t need a human interpreter. Creative platforms that make someone feel like a designer or filmmaker without ever opening a tutorial.
The test is: does this make someone say, “wait, how did that just happen?” because that’s when you’ve moved from utility to magic. And that’s what we’re betting on.
As for the founders – what matters most to us is how deeply they understand the problem they’re solving. We don’t care if the pitch is rough or the deck is half-finished. What we want to see is urgency, clarity, and momentum. We want to feel like now is the moment for this product to exist, and this is the person who can make it inevitable.
It’s also about speed and humility. The best founders we’ve backed are fast to ship, fast to learn, and not afraid to ask for help. They don’t posture, they execute. And they’re obsessed – not just with the tech, but with building something people actually want to use again tomorrow.
Most VCs stick to Silicon Valley or maybe expand to a few major hubs, but you’ve taken quite a different path by focusing on MENA, South America, Southeast Asia, and Central & Eastern Europe. What led you to look beyond the traditional markets?
We’ve consistently seen stronger fundamentals outside the usual echo chambers. In these regions, founders are building real products for real users – often with limited resources and zero hype. The pitch decks might be rougher, but the signal is clearer: deep customer understanding, traction in hard markets, and a mindset shaped by constraints, not excess.
Meanwhile, in SV and other saturated hubs, there’s often too much capital backing narratives over execution. We’re not here to play that game. We’re looking for substance – teams that are already doing a lot with a little and just need the right partner to help them scale.
These markets aren’t underserved because the talent isn’t there, they’re underserved because the playbook isn’t as clear. That’s what we bring: operational muscle, pattern recognition, and the context to help founders turn proven traction into global outcomes.
You’ve seen thousands of pitches over the years. When evaluating potential investments, what are the key signals that indicate a startup is ready to scale internationally?
What we’re really looking for is product validation and readiness to scale – not just in terms of demand, but in terms of internal foundations.
Validation doesn’t have to mean dominance in your home market. We just need to see real signs that the product works somewhere – that users are coming back consistently, that people are paying without needing constant incentives, and that there’s a genuine pull from the market. That might be in your local market, or it could be a completely different geography. But the key signal is: has this product earned its place in someone’s life or workflow?
But that’s only one side of it. The other is whether the company is actually ready to handle scale. That’s everything from how the tech is built, to how the team thinks about hiring and culture, to whether there are basic systems in place that won’t fall apart when things speed up. Can the team grow headcount without compromising quality? Can they move into new markets without reinventing the wheel each time?
Scaling internationally isn’t just about turning up the volume. It’s about building a system that works when the stakes get higher.
In what ways does Kinetic Investments provide hands-on support to portfolio companies after the initial investment, especially during their first year?
This is where most funds love to talk a big game and then vanish when it counts. Everyone promises support, but too often that just means a Notion template.
We do the opposite. Our team’s 18 strong, and only two of us are investors. The rest are operators – across finance, legal, growth, data, HR – people who’ve built and scaled companies before. We’ve set it up so founders can tap into that firepower exactly when they need it, without wasting precious runway on full-time hires too early.
We’re not trying to overengineer anything. Early-stage teams don’t need a VP of anything – they need someone who can jump in and unblock a specific challenge quickly. That might be rebuilding a pricing model, reviewing a messy contract, sorting a new hire’s equity, or figuring out why onboarding is leaking users.
The goal’s simple: remove friction, protect the founder’s time, and let them stay focused on building.
What recent developments in AI and digital consumer experiences do you find most transformative, and how do they influence your investment strategy?
The real shift isn’t just that AI is more capable, it’s that users now expect products to be smarter, faster, and more personalised by default. People are no longer impressed by a clever demo. They want tools that just work – that adapt instantly, anticipate needs, and remove friction without fanfare.
That’s the shift we’re betting on. We’re not chasing foundational models or abstract breakthroughs – we’re backing AI-native products that change how people experience everyday services. Whether that’s healthcare, finance, legal, education or creativity, we’re looking for startups that deliver real, felt value in seconds.
We think three things are coming together. First, AI is fast becoming the primary way people access knowledge and services – replacing clunky dashboards and endless search with intuitive, conversational interfaces. Second, hyper-personalisation at scale is finally viable. If your product still feels one-size-fits-all, it’s behind. And third, speed matters. Whether it’s answering a legal question or generating a fitness plan, users expect results now – not in a few hours or days.
So we focus on companies that build with the user in mind, not the hype cycle. If the product saves time, removes complexity, or makes someone feel more capable from the first interaction – we’re paying attention. That’s where habits are formed, and real defensibility is built.
As Kinetic Investments enters its eighth year, what milestones are you most proud of, and what are your ambitions for the next phase of the fund?
We’ve built a portfolio that’s now delivering a 7.2x TVPI, a 2.7x DPI and a 26% realised IRR across 12 active companies. That’s with only one exit so far, we’ve got more to come, and we’ve already returned meaningful capital.
But what I’m proudest of isn’t on a slide. It’s the reputation we’ve built with founders. Not by posting Medium essays or hosting panels, but by being the fund that shows up when it’s hard – when a hire falls through, a forecast breaks, or the product needs rethinking fast. That’s when people call us, and that’s exactly the type of partner we set out to be.
The reality is, there’s no shortage of capital for polished founders in safe markets. But the best companies often don’t look like that at the start. They’re scrappy. They’re early. They’re in the “wrong” geography. But they’re onto something. And we want to find them earlier, back them faster, and stick with them longer.
That’s what the next phase is about. We’re raising a $30 million fund to scale what’s already working: same strategy, same discipline – just with more reach. Our ambition is to become the go-to early partner for AI-native, product-first founders building in real markets. To keep our bar high, move quicker when we find conviction, and expand the edge of what gets funded.
We’re not optimising for headlines. We’re building a portfolio of companies that will quietly, but fundamentally, change how people live, work, and create.
What guidance would you offer to founders seeking investment from Kinetic or similar funds, particularly those aiming for global growth?
You don’t need polish, you need clarity. Show us that you deeply understand the problem, that you’ve solved some small piece of it, and that you’re learning quickly.
Be honest about what you know and what you don’t. The best founders aren’t afraid to say where they need help, they just keep moving forward.
And don’t wait for an introduction. We read every cold email!
