Letter from the Chairman

For many, the idea of being restricted in movement, locked down, with limited access to necessities has been their daily life before the pandemic that gripped the world since the beginning of 2020. The days and months that followed since have ranged from difficult to bewildering, delicate to hopeful, and everything in between. One thing has become certain: life, as we used to know it, is now fundamentally changed. Numerous societal, structural and historical factors that combine to restrict growth have only intensified and compounded with the pandemic for people. So when you’re concerned about keeping the lights on, feeding your children, the exacerbation of discrimination, what retirement looks like after a market evisceration, perspective shifts dramatically. How do you keep surviving? What becomes your purpose?

Purpose has been the brightest light shining a path for Rokk3r. We established Rokk3r with the firm purpose to deliver and drive innovation, specifically understanding that uncertainties would always be the norm. It is my constant aim to ensure Rokk3r does not fall prey to the inevitable uncertainties that time undoubtedly brings. As such, we continue evolving and enabling Rokk3r to persist and thrive.

In under a decade Rokk3r has built over 50 companies worth over half a billion dollars, and has created a world class venture builder ecosystem that includes company building, micro-portfolios of exponential technologies and industry verticals, a launchpad for companies and services across the globe, and corporate innovation at the edge of organizations.

We continue to advance Rokk3r regardless of changing environments based on our unique, collaborative understanding of the world. This understanding spans acknowledgement of technology as a global equalizer, recognition of key macro level challenges, and awareness of impacts across industry value chains. The result is a proven record that demonstrates our capacity to maximize social impact, values and returns.

Technology is an equalizer across the globe in a way no other tool has been in the history of humankind. Specifically, there is a democratization of global human potential that is occurring as a result of increased access to exponential technologies such as AI, robotics, and synthetic biology. We live in a world where over 4.5 billion people are connected online, where in 2020 the world will be online the equivalent of a whopping 1.25 billion years cumulatively, where 8 billion minds will be connected online in less than 5 years, and uncertainty will surely become the norm, whether it’s economic instability, pandemics, or similar. As such, ongoing challenges are more common than stability.

At the macro level, it becomes important to identify the big challenges that impact industries and by default, the nature of the business. In Rokk3r’s case, it’s about determining what are the challenges constantly being brought upon an innovation infrastructure as a result of intersecting exponential technologies? Similarly, how does a fully connected human population shift the dynamics of entrepreneurship? And, with greater cause for concern, how do the interconnected matters of pandemics, geopolitical instability, the climate crisis and more change how the world recognizes the value of innovation? Rokk3r continues to develop strategies and solutions for these macro challenges by recognizing technology as the equalizer, the democratization of global human potential, and widespread access to the internet.

We understand that every value chain across every industry is, and will continue to be impacted. New industries will form, new value chains will be created, new opportunities will be born. An infrastructure that recognizes the scope and breadth of change, and the human potential that exists across the world, is crucial to not simply surviving, but thriving during this time.

With this understanding and within this context, Rokk3r has delivered value beyond expectation, developed a potent global network, created in-roads of access, and sharpened its world-class capabilities. Building on these successes, we are now ready to pivot our model away from creating ideas through partnerships with external parties, and finally towards creating and launching businesses based on our own ideas. Rokk3r will strategically build, acquire and/or integrate companies based on our own internal inclinations - knowing exactly where the most value can be generated and marshalling all of our resources and expertise to deliver success in those spaces. This pivot also means that Rokk3r will have close to, or majority equity, control and decision making in everything we create moving forward. I have been very impressed with the early successes that we are already seeing based on this pivot through WAO!, our Insurtech division, our efforts under the AI Venture Builder (including companies like Graphpath, Ontogen and Detecta), Cargologik, Beriblock and more. 

As a strategic holding company that invests in creating, acquiring and integrating companies, leveraging exponential technologies to achieve maximum social impact, value and returns, Rokk3r aims to be a beacon of light in helping the world thrive through present uncertainties and those of future decades ahead. Whether it’s the jaw-dropping impacts of AI across every industry, or the combination of AI and other exponential technologies changing the way we interact with each other and the world around us - whether it’s looking at how advanced robotics is allowing us to make commercial space flights a reality, thus opening up a new stratosphere of economies - or whether it’s looking beyond AI and into the next century of technology-driven advancements, Rokk3r will be at there to navigate a path of value on the leading edge.

Nabyl Charania

Chairman