My Business: How a Dubai-based founder is simplifying personalisation for everyday brands

Dubai: When Darren Edmund talks about digital personalisation, he does not frame it as a buzzword or a feature race. He speaks about it as a gap that most companies know exists, yet struggle to close.

After more than a decade working across product, digital transformation and growth teams, Edmund saw the same frustration repeat itself across industries. Brands wanted to create experiences that felt relevant and human. Execution kept getting in the way.

“I’ve always believed that great digital experiences shouldn’t be so hard to deliver,” he said. “Despite the best intentions, brands struggle to turn personalisation into reality. It’s not a lack of desire. It’s the complexity behind the scenes.”

That insight became the starting point for Cobi, a Dubai-based platform designed to help teams deliver intelligent, personalised digital experiences without heavy technical lift. Edmund’s ambition was not to build another enterprise tool. It was to remove friction from a process that had grown bloated with systems, silos and specialist teams.

Edmund’s background gave him a front-row seat to how large organisations actually work. He began his career in consulting with the Big Four, before moving into leadership roles inside startups, including serving as chief business officer for a New York-based company. Along the way, he worked with global corporations across sectors, from media and energy to large-scale transformation programmes in Saudi Arabia.

Those experiences shaped how he approached building Cobi. Instead of adding more layers, the product was designed to strip them away.

“We want to make it easy for teams to deliver intelligent, personalised experiences at scale,” he said. “Not as a luxury reserved for the biggest companies, but as something every brand can do by default.”

One of Cobi's biggest milestones came through its early corporate partnerships. Securing Mastercard as a partner marked a turning point, followed by deeper collaboration with Presight to bring personalisation capabilities into entire sectors.

“Seeing how these collaborations allow us to blend intelligent experience management with payment capabilities has been incredibly rewarding,” Edmund said. “It showed us the problem we’re solving is real, urgent and shared.”

Rather than chasing rapid expansion, those partnerships helped Cobi sharpen its focus. They also reinforced a principle that Edmund often returns to when talking about growth.

Staying focused has been one of the hardest parts of the journey. Personalisation touches everything from marketing to payments to data infrastructure. The temptation to expand the roadmap is constant.

“The problem is multifaceted,” Edmund said. “It’s tempting to stretch into different parts of the value chain.”

Cobi receives a steady stream of feature requests from users. Some shape the platform in meaningful ways. Others risk pulling it off course.

“The biggest lesson has been learning to listen deeply, but prioritise deliberately,” he said. “Not every request should be built, and not every opportunity needs to be chased.”

That discipline has helped the company avoid dilution at a stage when many early products lose clarity.

Edmund chose Dubai as Cobi’s base because of the pace and mindset of the ecosystem. The city’s openness to experimentation and its appetite for technology made it a natural testing ground.

“There’s a belief here that things can always be better,” he said. “That kind of environment is exactly what you need when you’re building something new.”

Support from the broader ecosystem was critical. Initiatives led by Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism, alongside Plug and Play under programmes supported by Sheikh Hamdan, helped provide early momentum. Investors also played an active role beyond capital.

“Having backers who guide your thinking through each stage of growth makes a real difference,” Edmund said.

Cobi's early backing came from Silicon Valley-based Plug and Play, alongside Salica Investments and regional family offices such as Annex Investments. A group of experienced angel investors rounded out the cap table.

Five years from now, Edmund sees Cobi operating in the background of everyday digital experiences.

“When a product understands your needs and helps you get more value from it, our hope is that Cobi is the engine making that possible,” he said.

He also wants to shift who gets to design those experiences. “Personalisation shouldn’t require deep technical expertise or large teams. It should be intuitive and accessible.

His advice to new founders reflects that outlook. Start building. Stay patient. Momentum arrives closer than it appears.