Sam Istambouli
Executive Summary
Technology executive and four-time founder with 19 years building, scaling and selling software companies across the Middle East and North America. Currently Founder & CEO of Looops.ai and co-founder of Lemontree.studio.
Key Highlights
- 4 Companies Founded, 2 Acquired
- Scaled platform to 600K active users
- IEEE-published computer engineer (MSc)
- Former Engineering Manager for Landing AI
Founder OF
Looops.ai
AI Website builder for small businesses and portfolio sites
Career History
Professional Experience
2026 – Present
Looops.ai
Founder & CEO
Montreal, Canada
AI-native website platform. Founded and lead the company; own strategy, product, engineering, pricing and go-to-market. Took the platform from concept to public launch in under a year.
- Launched in 2025 as Nodetree, rebranded to Looops in 2026
- Secured partnerships with AWS, Google and Cloudflare
- Set technical direction on frontier AI infrastructure
2023 – Present
Lemontree.studio
Co-Founder & Technical Director
Montreal, Canada
Design and development studio. Awwwards Nominee (2025). Manage all development and client engagements across Canada, MENA, and Europe.
- Co-founded with designer Samira Baroudi
- Spanning branding, web/mobile products, SEO, and AI automation
2019 – 2022
Akadenia
Engineering Manager
Remote, United States
San Francisco software firm serving venture-backed startups. Led a five-engineer team delivering web and mobile products.
- Delivered platforms for Landing AI (Andrew Ng's company)
- Managed client relationships end to end: scoping, budgets, delivery
- AWS Select Tier Partner
2014 – 2017
BidZeed
Co-Founder & CTO
Beirut, Lebanon
One of the first auction e-commerce platforms in the GCC. Acquired by a regional competitor.
- Scaled to 100K+ verified users, 5K auctions and 1.6M bids
- Brought the platform to market in under three months
2011 – 2014
At7addak
Co-Founder & CTO
Beirut, Lebanon
First e-sports platform in the Middle East. Acquired by a competing gaming company.
- Scaled to 600K active users and 8M monthly page views
- Reached profitability in 2013
- Secured EA, Activision Blizzard, and Red Bull as sponsors
Core Competencies
Areas of Expertise
Company Building
Founding, scaling, exits, founder operations
Product Strategy
Positioning, pricing, go-to-market, SaaS unit economics
AI Products
LLM-based product development, frontier model infrastructure
Engineering Leadership
Team building, delivery management, technical architecture
Client & Partner Relations
Enterprise and startup clients, sponsors, stakeholder management
Education
2009
MSc, Computer Engineering
University of Balamand, Lebanon
2007
BSc, Computer Engineering
University of Balamand, Lebanon
Publication
"Hardware Architecture for a Shift-Based Parallel Odd-Even Transposition Sorting Network."
IEEE International Conference on Advances in Computational Tools for Engineering Applications (ACTEA), 2019.
Languages
Get in Touch
Strategic Partnerships & Technology Leadership.
Montreal, Canada