Omar Darwazah
Omar holds a BA in Economics and Political Science with Honors from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Omar was born in Cairo and lived in New York, London, Chicago, Montreal, and Paris. He now resides in Washington DC with his wife Bouchra and twin son and daughter Zayn and Layla.
Omar enjoys scuba diving and is an avid travel photographer having visited 104 countries around the world. He also has an interest in film production and has been an Executive Producer on several short feature films including Baby Mine (2017) and Lab Rat (2018).
He was named as one of Wharton’s 40 under 40 in 2017, one of the Top 100 University of Chicago Alumni in Tech in 2021 and one of Arab America Foundation's 40 under 40 for 2023.
Omar is the Managing Director, General Partner and CFO of AAF Management Ltd. (AAF), an early-stage venture capital firm he co-founded in 2016. AAF invests in venture-backed pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A tech companies in North America as well as global early-stage emerging managers. The firm currently has over $234M in assets under management.
To-date, Omar has invested $71M in over 120 venture-backed startups in the US and 37 emerging managers globally through the firm and in over 30 companies in Africa and the MENA region through his family office.
His fund performance is consistently ranked in the top decile in terms of DPI and TVPI respectively benchmarked on Cambridge Associates’ data on over 1500 US VC Funds.
Previously, Omar spent 10 years of his career with OCI N.V. in Cairo and New York focusing on investor relations, strategy, and corporate finance where he worked on over $35B worth of corporate transactions. Prior to that, Omar was with Deloitte Tax LLP in Chicago and Deutsche Bank’s Leveraged Finance team in London.
Omar sits on the Board of TechWadi, is a mentor to the NYU Steinhardt EdTech Accelerator, a mentor at the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center and a judge at the Wharton School’s Venture Lab.
Omar holds a BA in Economics and Political Science with Honors from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
He is an avid traveler and has visited 104 countries around the world. He also has an interest in film production and has been an Executive Producer on several short feature films including Baby Mine (2017) and Lab Rat (2018).
He was named as one of Wharton’s 40 under 40 in 2017, one of the Top 100 University of Chicago Alumni in Tech in 2021, one of Arab America Foundation's 40 Under 40 Class of 2023 and is a Kauffman Fellow (Class 25).
As a member of Class 25, Omar served his fellowship at AAF Management Ltd. under the mentorship of Ian Sigalow.