When Maltese founder Zack Xuereb left the University of Malta with a Maths and Computer Science background, he was already looking beyond exams and traditional career paths. What he really wanted was to build things- real products that real people would use.<\/p>\n
\u200e\u201cStudying Maths taught me a lot about logic,\u201d he says, \u201cbut exams were structured around memory, which felt useless for the future. At the same time, my friends and I realised we could build things with code. Creating products felt far more exciting than taking a traditional job.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200eThat realisation \u2014 that software could turn an idea into something meaningful from scratch \u2014 pushed him head-first into entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n
\u200e<\/p>\n
Building His First Startup<\/p>\n
Zack\u2019s first venture was Avail, a privacy-preserving digital wallet built on Aleo, a blockchain network designed for zero-knowledge technology. At the time, blockchain transactions were far from private; anyone could see your full balance if you\u2019d ever interacted with them. \u201cThat didn\u2019t make sense for a technology meant to modernise financial infrastructure,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n
Avail taught him one lesson that he now considers fundamental to every successful tech business: \u201cYou have to speak to real customers before building anything.\u201d
The blockchain world, he says, often operated in an idealistic bubble \u2014 but products only succeed if they solve concrete problems for real people.<\/p>\n
\u200e<\/p>\n
A Global Journey With Aleo: Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore<\/p>\n
After Avail, Zack joined Aleo in the US, just months before the company\u2019s public mainnet launch- the moment the network would begin processing real money. He found himself operating at the intersection of high-stakes engineering and global expansion.<\/p>\n
\u200eHis role involved integrating Aleo into platforms ahead of launch and travelling across Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, and Bangkok with Aleo\u2019s then-COO (now CEO) to meet banks, developers, and strategic partners.<\/p>\n
\u200eThose months abroad tightened his understanding of what it takes to build and scale a global tech company.<\/p>\n
\u200e\u201cI learned directly from the COO how to run a company \u2014 how to set objectives, measure progress, and build a world-class product,\u201d he says. Exposure to different cultures also reshaped how he thought about software: not as a local tool, but as a global language.<\/p>\n
\u200e<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spotting the Shift in How the World Searches<\/p>\n
\u200eAfter years in blockchain, Zack saw something bigger brewing: the collapse of traditional search as we know it.<\/p>\n
\u200eFor 25 years, Google\u2019s blue links connected searchers with businesses, powering a $100 billion SEO industry. But AI, he explains, is completely flipping that model.<\/p>\n
\u200eTools like ChatGPT are quickly becoming a new gateway to information \u2014 and every shift in user behaviour creates a corresponding shift in how brands need to be discovered.\u200e<\/p>\n
\u200eThat\u2019s where Meridian, his New York-based startup, comes in.<\/p>\n
\u200eMeridian runs daily prompts across platforms like ChatGPT to analyse: which brands appear in AI-generated answers, in what context and sentiment, what sources the AI is citing. With that intelligence, the platform helps companies create the type of content AI tends to reference, engage with publishers who influence model outputs, and optimise their own web presence for this new AI-driven discovery layer.<\/p>\n
\u200e\u201cIn simple terms,\u201d Zack says, \u201cwe help companies understand and improve how they appear in AI search.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200eToday, Meridian already supports 100+ companies globally, ranging from e-commerce brands fighting to maintain visibility to agencies managing multiple clients in an increasingly AI-shaped internet.<\/p>\n
\u200e<\/p>\n
\u200eRaising Millions \u2014 and the Hardest Part of Building in New York<\/p>\n
\u200eVenture capitalists were drawn to two things: the size of the opportunity and belief in the founders\u2019 ability to execute. \u201cFor most investors, those are the core pillars,\u201d Zack explains. \u201cA massive shift in how the world works \u2014 and a team capable of building something meaningful in that space.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200eBut the biggest challenge hasn\u2019t been fundraising. It\u2019s been people.<\/p>\n
\u200e\u201cFinding great people who want to join us on the journey is the hardest part,\u201d he says. \u201cBuilding a team with the right mix of ambition, skill, and ownership is incredibly difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200eLooking ahead, Zack\u2019s ambition for Meridian is straightforward but sweeping: \u201cto make every company discoverable and transactable in the age of AI.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200eBut he also carries a more personal mission \u2014 to inspire Maltese students and young people to think globally and ambitiously.<\/p>\n
\u200e\u201cI hope my journey shows that you can learn anything quickly if you\u2019re driven by curiosity,\u201d he says. \u201cTechnology creates opportunities far beyond our borders. The internet lets you meet anyone, build from anywhere, and compete globally. But the starting point is always understanding what you truly want out of life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Maltese founder Zack Xuereb left the University of Malta with a Maths and Computer Science background, he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[72,191,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-194681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-entrepreneurship","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}