Wa'ed Ventures (Venture Capital Fund)

Wa'ed Ventures — Equity Investment

Invests in Saudi startup founders through Wa'ed Ventures, supporting early and growth-stage innovation across sectors.

Wa'ed Ventures is a $500 million corporate venture capital fund that is a subsidiary of the Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship Center (Wa'ed), itself the flagship entrepreneurship program established by Saudi Aramco. The fund invests in innovative early-stage to growth-stage startups with high growth potential, with the explicit aim of promoting economic development in Saudi Arabia and strengthening the Kingdom's entrepreneurship ecosystem. Since its founding in 2013, the fund had deployed more than $270 million across 75+ portfolio companies as of 2024. A dedicated $100 million allocation for early-stage AI investments was announced in October 2024.

Ticket sizes range from seed-stage amounts to a maximum of $20 million per individual deal. Investment is equity-based and dilutive — Wa'ed Ventures takes an ownership stake in the company. KSA localization is a hard screening criterion: startups must demonstrate Kingdom-based status across headquarters, incorporation, operations, management, employees, customers, or supply chain. Priority sectors include artificial intelligence, IoT, e-commerce, fintech, drones, cloud and supercomputing, energy and industrial technology, agtech, edtech, healthtech, sustainability, and deep tech. For-profit companies only are eligible; nonprofits, universities, and research organizations are not.

Deal flow submissions are accepted on a rolling basis via the Kushim dealflow portal at the Wa'ed Ventures page and through the email address investment@waed.com. The application form collects industry, stage, country of incorporation, team size and roles, current round size, committed co-investors, prior investment history, and the startup's KSA localization profile along with a pitch deck. The fund also operates a 12-month incubation program offering mentoring, co-working, bootcamps, and workshops as ancillary support to portfolio companies.