Aramco’s venture capital arm expands investment fund to $500m

Saudi oil giant Aramco announced an increase in funding for its venture capital arm Wa’ed Ventures.

The company has allocated $300m in additional funds to Wa’ed Ventures, increasing the size of its venture capital arm from $200m to $500m.

The increase aims to “enable the company to deliver an accelerated investment performance regionally and globally,” Aramco said in a statement.

@Waed_Ventures announces at #LEAP23 the expansion of its investment fund to support Saudi tech companies by localizing global innovations & investments. pic.twitter.com/lvtGTJXu7m

— LEAP (@LEAPandInnovate) February 6, 2023

The announcement was made at the LEAP tech conference currently ongoing in Riyadh.

Wa’ed Ventures aims to localise frontier technologies to advance the kingdom’s innovation ecosystem; expand investments in mid and growth-stage startups; and fund underserved domains such as environmental, social and governance, the metaverse and quantum computing, the company added.

Aramco also announced a strategic partnership with Zoom to build the latter’s first global data center in the kingdom. The tie-up aims to contribute to the digital transformation of various market sectors, such as energy, industry, education and healthcare.

Read: LEAP23 announces investments of over $9bn to support future technology and startups

“Our establishment of a diversified network of partners has helped us maintain a track record of reliability, and our new strategic partnership with Zoom is expected to further enable innovative solutions focusing on the digital transformation ecosystem. Furthermore, with an expanded fund size, Wa’ed Ventures aims to facilitate the cross-pollination of innovation between the global and local markets,” said Amin H. Nasser, Aramco president and CEO.

Last month, Wa’ed Ventures plugged in $14m in Terra Drone Corporation, a Japanese drone technology company, marking its debut investment in an Asian startup.

Also read: Aramco’s venture capital arm invests $14m in Japanese drone tech firm