First and foremost, our trip to Dubai for the 10th Ritossa Family Office Summit was incredibly positive. As we expected, there was a high-class/high net worth audience on-site and many participants were actively looking for investment opportunities. However, these types of investors are often quite conservative in their investment strategy.

General information about the event

The Ritossa Family Office Summit is the world’s largest and most exclusive gathering of family wealth, with a combined investor wealth of more than $4.5 trillion. A total of 600 participants were present, including many family offices and companies seeking potential investments. The companies came from a variety of backgrounds and are in various stages of development. There was an investor-delegate ratio of 3:1.

https://www.ritossafamilysummits.com/

Procedure

The event started with a welcome networking evening in the garden of the Four Seasons Hotel, the hotel was also the venue where the summit was held. From 6–8pm, wine and beer were served free of charge accompanied by snacks. Most participants were there on time at 6pm, which was a good indication of the level of commitment and interest. The event provided a great atmosphere for networking. It was pleasing to see that Tixl had some recognition from participants who were not there for the first time.

Sunday began at 8am with breakfast snacks before the opening speech officially launched the Summit. Throughout the day, panel discussions on a variety of topics took place. What we did find overwhelmingly positive — compared to our experiences at other conferences — was how well the organizers managed to ensure that almost all participants attended the panel sessions and actively listened. As a rule, there was a planned break after every 2–3 panel sessions, which was actively used for networking.

Sunday ended with several round table discussions on different topics. At the conclusion of the sessions a restaurant/bar at the hotel provided another great setting for networking.

Monday started again at 8am and there were several interesting panel discussions on the agenda. Our very own Sebastian took part in the panel discussion on “FinTech and Digital Assets”.

Networking

We were very impressed by how actively everyone networked. In order to gauge the feel of the conference, and co-ordinate our approach, we spent the first evening together. In contrast to the welcome evening, the next day (Sunday) we split up, both during the day and in the evening, in order to talk to as many participants as possible.

We met participants from all over the world — Australia, New York, the US west coast, Europe, different Asian hotspots such as Singapore, India, Hong Kong and China and, of course, the Arab region.

In total, we exchanged contact details with about 50 participants and are now in contact with them via email and LinkedIn.

Family Offices Investment Philosophy

We always measure the success of this type of event by assessing the potential for large-scale fundraising, and we want to communicate our impression transparently. Firstly, it is important to understand that family offices are not business angels or venture capital companies. The primary goal of these entities is to protect family wealth and to increase it through investments with as manageable a risk as possible. Investment in sustainable and crisis-proof companies is therefore the primary focus. We understand this approach and appreciate that newer investment assets, like Tixl, have traditionally not been a good fit with this philosophy.

However, we have noticed that digital assets are becoming much better known to family offices are they are becoming increasingly interested in them — even if they have not invested in Bitcoin (or similar) yet. We also heard from sources that there has already been active investment in the crypto market — but that it was more the exception than the rule.

People like Saeed Hareb Al Darmaki, Co-Founder of Alphabit Digital Currency Fund, have been making great contributions to help make digital asset investment more attractive to the participants and building trust in this area. Given the traditional investment profile of these Family Offices, confidence in cryptocurrency will take time to grow.

Conclusion and what to do next

We met a number of people who were interested in investing in Tixl. Most of these people already have experience in investing in crypto. Over the coming weeks, we will try to close deals with these investors. Given the size and experience of these organizations, it is fully expected that any potential investors will carry out extensive due diligence after the event so, at this stage, it’s hard to determine whether any investment will occur or how large it will be. We appreciate that the biggest hurdle for investors is the fact that we do not yet have our prototype. Investors are understandably focused on whether we can fully develop Tixl.

Regardless of whether any investment in Tixl — as a direct result of attending the Summit — is realized over the coming weeks, we came away with an overwhelmingly positive impression of the event and would be very happy to have the opportunity to participate in the future. Our view is that we can build an extremely valuable, top-class network from it. The aim is to maintain regular contact with the participants to build trust and confidence and grow the wider network.