Jordan-Based Propeller Launches US$50 Million AI Fund For US And MENA Startups

Jordan-born venture capital firm Propeller has launched its US$50 million Fund III, with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure as it expands its investment strategy across startups in the MENA and the US.

The latest fund targets software companies building horizontal AI infrastructure and AI-native applications, with an emphasis on founders developing products for global markets, and, in many cases, seeking access to the Silicon Valley ecosystem. 

Fund III is already deploying capital, backing companies such as Codemod in San Francisco, a developer tooling startup focused on accelerating code migration; Netpreme in Boston, which works on secure, high-performance AI networking infrastructure; Stealthium in Toronto, a security-focused AI infrastructure company; Pebble in New York City and San Francisco, which builds AI-enabled workflow automation tools; and Ciphero AI in New York City, a builder of an AI verification layer that allows AI practitioners to verify and secure all AI within their workspace.

Propeller was founded in 2017 by Zaid Farekh, who had spent more than a decade building technology products in the region before formalizing his role as an investor. He initially backed software startups individually, then launched Propeller with other ecosystem leaders in Jordan to give those efforts a structured, institutional foundation. Today, the firm operates across Riyadh, Amman, Boston, and Silicon Valley, reflecting its focus on supporting pre-seed and seed stage infrastructure software startups in both the MENA and the US. 

In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Farekh explained that this cross-continental lens is core to how Propeller invests. “Founders in both the US and MENA are building for a world where compute, engineering talent, and enterprise demand shift across borders, and Propeller has designed its model to help them move at that rhythm,” Farekh explained. “North America remains the world’s center stage for technological advancement, founder talent density, and the most dynamic, mature startup ecosystem in the world. The MENA region is becoming a force in global AI development, powered by capital, compute, and an emerging generation of engineers.” 

Propeller's Fund III thus widens the scope for founders working on foundational technologies that enable modern AI systems across both the MENA and North America. Farekh emphasized that the mandate extends across a broad set of technical layers. “We see opportunities at every layer of the AI stack, across all geographies," he noted. "In fact, we want founders who are addressing global gaps, not only regional ones.” Farekh also revealed that the new fund shall deploy checks between $500,000 and $3 million into pre-seed and seed stage companies coming from MENA or already based in North America. "We don’t have a particular opinion about going early in one region versus another,” he added. 

Farekh broke Propeller’s priority areas into four buckets. These include hardware-adjacent enablement, model optimization, and silicon tooling that extract more performance from every graphics processing unit (GPU). He also pointed to the layers of infrastructure, orchestration, runtimes, application programming interface (APIs), and machine learning operations (MLOps) systems that make AI usable, scalable, and secure. Another priority area is soft networking and storage designed for new AI compute paradigms, while, on the platform side, Farekh highlighted horizontal AI platforms that standardize workflows across industries, spanning everything from vector databases to inference orchestration. And when it comes to applications, he emphasized vertical AI apps with infrastructure moats rather than simple wrappers—the kinds of products that could become “the Figma or Salesforce of the AI era.”

Building on this outlook, Farekh shared that Propeller's Fund III has been shaped around the experience gained from its earlier funds, which helped clarify how founders in both regions can compete and scale. “Our first two funds taught us three main things," he said. "First, the MENA region is rich in technical talent that can compete globally. Next, the US—Silicon Valley in particular—is the best place for an early builder to get their first customers, iterate their product quickly, and pick up early funding. And finally, we compound our strengths and successes when we focus on a few, related sectors that we know extremely well. Companies like OpenCX, Activepieces, Clarity, and other success stories from our Fund II embody those learnings.” 

At the end of the day, Farekh highlighted that Propeller’s cross-regional model creates momentum for founders in both the MENA and the US. “We believe that founders on both ends of the bridge can benefit from greater connectivity to the other end," he said. "The American founder optimizing memory on GPUs will certainly benefit from a foothold in the region leading the globe in spending on compute and datacenter projects, while the MENA founder looking for his first customers and to surround himself with world-class entrepreneurial peers will certainly benefit from the chance to soft land into Silicon Valley."

Pictured in the lead image is Propeller founder and Managing Partner Zaid Farekh. Image courtesy Propeller.