As businesses across the MENA region accelerate their digital transformation strategies, financial management is emerging as a critical component of sustainable growth and global competitiveness. SMEs, in particular, are seeking solutions to streamline processes, navigate evolving tax regulations, and harness the power of data-driven insights.
In this landscape, platforms that simplify complex financial workflows and compliance are gaining momentum. One such player is CrossVal, founded by Ajinkya Tanpure, who brings experience spanning private equity and venture capital across multiple markets. Headquartered in the UAE, CrossVal offers a comprehensive toolkit—from automated bookkeeping to AI-powered reporting—designed to help MENA-based SMEs optimise their financial operations. Speaking with Finance Middle East, Tanpure, CEO and Founder, shares how CrossVal aims to empower businesses by alleviating their reliance on cumbersome spreadsheets, improving financial clarity, and ultimately fostering a more efficient, innovation-driven ecosystem.
What drove you to join the startup world?
My path to the startup world wasn’t a straight line—it was more of an organic progression driven by an insatiable curiosity and a desire to create real impact. Coming from an engineering background and pursuing my CFA, I’ve always been drawn to solving intricate puzzles, especially at the intersection of technology and finance.
My professional journey took me through private equity and venture capital, where I got a front-row seat to innovation in action. Those experiences were eye-opening. I saw brilliant minds transforming industries, not just with technology, but with a fundamental reimagining of how things could work. Each startup I encountered was like a laboratory of possibility—challenging the status quo and pushing boundaries.
At CrossVal, for instance, we’re not just creating another software tool—we’re streamlining financial workflows, giving professionals time back and bringing unprecedented clarity to complex processes.
The startup ecosystem is more than a career path for me. It’s a platform for meaningful innovation. Every day brings a new challenge, a new problem to solve, and the potential to make a tangible difference. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning—the chance to turn creative solutions into reality.
Why did you choose the Middle East as the place to start/expand the business?
Having spent over 20 years living, studying, and working in the UAE, the Middle East is more than just a region to me—it’s home. I’ve seen the region evolve into a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship, with governments and private sectors actively supporting startups. This region also has unique challenges, particularly in financial transparency and operational efficiency for businesses, and I saw an opportunity to address these through technology.
How would you describe the region’s startup scene in three words?
Resilient, dynamic, ambitious.
Is there something that has surprised you in your journey?
The startup ecosystem here has been nothing short of revelatory. Contrary to the cutthroat narrative many expect, I’ve discovered an incredibly collaborative environment where entrepreneurs genuinely want to lift each other up.
What’s truly surprised me is how readily founders share insights, make introductions, and support each other’s ventures. Instead of viewing each other as competitors, there’s a shared understanding that we’re collectively building something larger—a robust, innovative ecosystem that transcends individual companies.
What are (in your view) the keys to approaching investors successfully?
Approaching investors successfully is part art, part science. It’s not just about the numbers—it’s about telling a narrative that resonates and demonstrates both vision and practicality.
Preparation is your foundation. Know your market inside and out, have a clear, actionable strategy, and be ready to articulate how you’ll navigate challenges. But raw data isn’t enough. You need to weave those facts into a compelling story that captures imagination and potential.
The most crucial element? Trust. Investors are betting on you as much as your business. They want to see your passion, commitment, and ability to execute. Your credibility and personal conviction can often be the deciding factor that transforms interest into investment.
What was the most challenging part of raising funding, and how did you overcome it?
Raising funding is a delicate dance between ambition and authenticity. The biggest challenge was finding the right tone—presenting our vision compellingly without falling into the trap of unrealistic promises.
Early pitches taught me that investors can smell overconfidence from a mile away. I learned to ground our narrative in concrete, achievable milestones while maintaining the excitement of our broader vision. It wasn’t about diminishing our potential but about building genuine credibility.
Being part of programs like the Mohammed Bin Rashid Innovation Fund (MBRIF) was a game-changer, helping us connect with investors who truly understood our market’s nuances. By being consistently transparent and delivering on our commitments, we transformed initial skepticism into genuine trust.
What is the best piece of financial advice you have received?
As a founder, the best financial advice I’ve received was to treat company cash like oxygen—understand exactly how much you have, how long it will last, and be incredibly disciplined about its conservation.
But at the same time, don’t just optimise entirely for conservation, every dollar needs to have a clear, strategic purpose. Don’t just track expenses; understand their direct connection to growth and value creation.
What has been your biggest success and your biggest failure?
As a founder, success and failure are two sides of the same coin. Our biggest success has been the tangible impact we’ve made—over 100 companies across the Middle East now rely on CrossVal to transform their financial workflows. It’s not just about numbers; it’s about watching entrepreneurs and businesses reclaim hours of productivity and gain unprecedented clarity in their financial operations.
But that success wasn’t without painful lessons. Our most significant early failure was a classic startup mistake: we fell in love with our technology before understanding our users. We spent months building intricate features in isolation, convinced of our brilliance, without truly listening to what businesses needed.
This disconnect was humbling. We had created a technically impressive solution that missed the mark on real-world usability. It took several tough conversations with potential customers and a complete pivot in our approach to realising that product development isn’t about what we think is cool—it’s about solving genuine pain points.
That failure became our most valuable learning experience. We completely restructured our development process, embedding user feedback into every stage of our product design. Now, every feature we build is a direct response to actual user challenges, not just our own assumptions.
What is the best quality a leader can have?
Empathy. When you lead with empathy, you build more than a company. You build a community that’s aligned, motivated, and deeply committed to solving meaningful problems.
Where would you like to be in five years’ time?
I’d like to see the seeds of CrossVal’s impact extend globally, proving that solutions born in the Middle East can compete on a world stage.
