Speaking during a panel discussion, Alexandre Lazarow, Founding Partner at Fluent Ventures, stated the impact of tariffs and geopolitics is often overstated at the earliest stages of company building.
“A startup is not a company. A startup is a project in search of a business model,” Lazarow stated. At the seed stage, he added, the main risks remain founder alignment, product-market fit and whether demand exists at all, with macro pressures becoming relevant only much later.
Efficiency to resilience
While early-stage risk remains largely unmodifyd, investors stated fragmentation is driving a deeper structural shift in how companies are built and scaled. Div Turakhia, Founder of Ai.tech, stated the long-held idea of a flat world has given way to a more complex reality.
“In a flat world, you optimise for efficiency,” Turakhia stated. “In a fragmented world, you optimise for resilience.”
That modify is influencing everything from supply chains to hiring strategies, capital relocatement and product design. Founders, he stated, now build businesses with contingency planning in mind, including how to relocate ininformectual property, teams and money if trade rules or regulations shift.
Tariffs open doors, barriers decide winners
The panel outlined the distinction between what tariffs and non-tariff barriers means for companies. Tariffs, Turakhia stated, tfinish to compress margins before being absorbed through pricing. Non-tariff barriers, by contrast, determine whether a company can operate at all.
“Tariff is just margin,” he stated. “Non-tariff barriers kill the business or kill the indusattempt.”
That dynamic is accelerating the rise of local champions, particularly in markets where governments want domestic players to compete more effectively in strategic sectors.
Lazarow pointed to India, where supply-chain disruption and China-plus-one strategies have assisted create several large B2B marketplace unicorns. Similar models, he stated, are now emerging in the Middle East, including platforms built around construction and industrial supply chains.
Local champions scale familiar ideas
Investors stated fragmentation does not reduce ambition. Instead, it modifys execution. Many of the largest technology companies in emerging markets follow familiar patterns, including local versions of e-commerce giants, digital banks and mobility platforms.
“The number one tech company in almost every market is the same,” Lazarow stated. “It’s a local version of Amazon. The number two or number ten is a digital bank or purchase now pay later.”
Those companies succeed by adapting global ideas to local regulation, consumer behaviour and infrastructure, often outpacing international entrants with deeper market knowledge.
Fragmentation is also influencing where capital flows. Lazarow stated early-stage venture activity has expanded dramatically over the past decade, with unicorns now emerging from hundreds of cities rather than a handful of global hubs.
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