Tell us about yourself:
Born and raised in Rabat, Maati Benmbarek left Morocco as a teenager to go surf the pacific and finish his business studies. With a Baccalaureate in Business & Accountancy from Rabat, he left for San Francisco in the booming time of 2000.
After an internship in Deloitte Paris and a Degree in Business Economics and Accounting from the University of California at Los Angeles – UCLA, Maati joined the audit practice of Deloitte – San Francisco and worked mostly in the Venture Capital/Private Equity Industry.
Maati Benmbarek is currently Director & Asset Manager for Klein Capital, a Palo alto based real estate investment firm specializing in multifamily residential and affordable housing. Prior to joining Klein, Maati worked at Stockbridge Capital Group (SCG) where he managed the finances of a multi-billion dollar real estate portfolio. Prior to SCG, he was the Finance Manager for multiple funds at AMB Capital Partners, an industrial real estate portfolio. Since he moved to California, Maati became member of Techwadi, Silicon Valley’s premier professional association for Arab-American, Silicon-French, a business network for Silicon Valley Francophiles and AMPA, Association of Moroccan Professionals in America.
He currently leads a non profit, "Morocco-Foundation.org", that helps fight poverty and illiteracy in Morocco, as President and Board Member; he is also involved as a Board Member in San Francisco-based Arab Film Festival, the largest showcase of Arab Film outside of the Arab world.
He is also a Certified Public Accountant (inactive) in the State of California. Maati speaks four languages
What is your innovation/idea?
TeaCapp is a cloud-based solution for tenant income certification and compliance.
Everybody needs a home, and low income tenants usually have to wait for months on waiting lists, fill up a million form and meet so many requirements to be eligible to occupy an apartment (Below Market Rate) subsidized by Federal and/or State programs. TeaCapp help them by making that process seamless with a fun, easy to follow and engaging platform that helps them enter all the information required to qualify for an affordable unit and move in to their apartment quicker.
TeaCapp also helps Real Estate owners, who develop these affordable housing, protect their tax credit investments (over the compliance period of 15 years) associated with these affordable units/tenants. All back up is in the Cloud, and the Ts are crossed.
Why are you participating in this competition?
I have always admired all the work the Hack-Cancer team has done throughout the years (Anjou, Steve, etc.) and this is a great opportunity to join the wave and raise money for such a great cause. On a personal side, I just lost my aunt (the youngest aunt) last year for cancer and I have two friends that are fighting it as we speak, and I hope that we can help as many as we can that are dealing and challenging this powerful disease. I have been involved with Stem Cell research with my team who has helped raised funds to find cure for cancer through Stem Cell and it is exciting to join other groups to tackle the disease from every corner and help patients across the board.