The Story
Not a gamer. Not a VC. And then, somehow, both.
Growing up in Pakistan, Ibrahim Hafeez had no particular affinity for video games, and venture capital wasn't even a concept in his orbit. Finance drew him in not as a career path but as a way of thinking - a discipline, as he'd later put it, for evaluating risk and separating signal from noise. He studied at Simon Fraser University's Beedie School of Business, graduating in 2018 with that probabilistic lens firmly in place.
His entry into the gaming world happened during one of its most dramatic inflection points. Hafeez joined EA Sports' global licensing team at the exact moment the company was severing its decades-long relationship with FIFA and preparing to launch EA Sports FC. It was a historic pivot - the kind of moment that only happens once in an industry. Working behind the scenes on licensing strategy, he watched how intellectual property, sports rights, and global commerce collide inside a multi-billion dollar ecosystem. That collision, he says, sparked something lasting.
"Finance felt like the most intellectually rigorous lens through which to evaluate risk, capital allocation, and long-term value creation. It trained me to think probabilistically, to be disciplined about trade-offs, and to separate signal from noise."
- Ibrahim Hafeez, to SFU Beedie School of Business
By 2022, Hafeez had translated that awakening into a Principal role at Griffin Gaming Partners - one of the largest gaming-focused venture capital firms in the world, with over $1 billion in assets under management. He wasn't just observing the industry anymore. He was funding it. Over the next four years, he contributed to more than 30 investments across game studios, platforms, and gaming infrastructure, helping deploy over $150 million and overseeing a portfolio valued at more than $1.5 billion.
In February 2026, Hafeez made his next move: joining Anfa, a generalist multi-stage fund, as an Investor. The shift signals an expanding thesis - from gaming specialist to a broader mandate, while carrying everything he learned about emerging markets, founder relationships, and capital efficiency into a new chapter.
Forbes noticed. Their 2026 class of 30 Under 30 in the Games category included Hafeez - recognition not just of the investments, but of what he built around them: a presence in Turkey and the Middle East that other Western VCs had written off, a community for women in VC, and a reputation as a founder's first call from Istanbul to Los Angeles.
