Riyadh-Based SEEDRA Ventures Secures Investment From Saudi Venture Capital

Saudi Venture Capital (SVC), a subsidiary of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s SME Bank, has made an undisclosed investment in the SAR300 million (US$80 million) SEEDRA Ventures Fund II, which is managed by Riyadh-based venture capital (VC) firm SEEDRA Ventures.

Established in 2018 under the umbrella of Saudi Arabia’s National Development Fund, SVC aims to stimulate and develop financing for startups and SMEs in the Kingdom through investments in private capital funds as well as direct funding for such companies.

Meanwhile, SEEDRA Ventures, which was founded in 2019, invests in early-stage and high-growth technology startups across Saudi Arabia. It currently manages two funds: Fund I, a SAR100 million ($27 million) vehicle now in its harvest stage with a portfolio of roughly 27 companies, and Fund II, which closed last year after being oversubscribed, prompting its size to be increased to SAR300 million.

The SEEDRA Ventures Fund II has since been actively deploying capital, and while it is sector-agnostic, it is geared toward startups operating in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), fintech, and proptech. “Our thesis is simple: back exceptional founders building for Saudi Arabia and the wider MENA region at the earliest stages, where conviction and hands-on partnership matter most,” Haitham Alforaih, Managing Partner of SEEDRA Ventures, told Inc. Arabia. “We invest across sectors with a clear deployment and follow-on strategy, with a preference for AI, proptech, and fintech, and our portfolio includes leading names such as Lendo, Tamara, Sifi, Mawj, Signit, and Rize.”

According to Alforaih, the backing that SEEDRA Ventures has secured from SVC is thanks to the firm’s track record, team, and discipline. “Fund I has performed at the top end of its vintage, driven by strong winners that validate our selection approach, and the same conviction showed in Fund II, which drew demand well beyond its target from our investor base,” he shared. “SVC's participation adds one of the region's most respected institutional investors to that group. With Fund II well into deployment, we look to partner with founders at the very beginning of their journey, and stay with them through every stage of the build. We back entrepreneurs with deep insight into a real problem, the resilience to operate through cycles, and the ambition to create category leaders from Saudi Arabia.”

As for the impact of ongoing geopolitical tensions on the fundraising environment for early-stage startups in Saudi Arabia and the wider MENA region, Alforaih expressed confidence in the market's outlook. “We remain very positive on the environment,” Alforaih said. “The investment appetite for early-stage investing in Saudi Arabia and the wider region is extremely high, and we see significant opportunity ahead, particularly in new sectors emerging from the AI wave. What has changed is where capital flows: we are watching a clear reallocation toward these emerging segments, and toward companies applying AI to transform traditional industries, which we see as one of the defining themes of the next few years. Capital rewards discipline more than it did in the past, and it is being geared towards strong founders addressing large market gaps.”

That assessment also informed Alforaih's advice for entrepreneurs navigating the region's startup ecosystem today. “Our advice is to focus on building an outstanding business rather than optimizing for fundraising; capital follows quality, not the other way around,” he said. “Part of that is choosing the right problem in the right market: in our experience, a good founder in a great market builds a great company, while even a great founder in an average market too often ends up with an average outcome. So, size the opportunity honestly before committing years to it, do one thing exceptionally well before expanding, and focus on clear deliverables, not funding cycles.” And for founders weighing where in the region to build from, Alforaih argued that there is no more compelling market right now than Saudi Arabia. “You have a large, young, digitally native population, a government executing a genuine economic transformation under Vision 2030, deepening capital markets, and regulators who actively engage with innovators,” he noted. “The gap between the size of the opportunity and the number of great companies serving it remains wide, and for an ambitious entrepreneur, that gap is the invitation.”