RAED Ventures

RAED Ventures says it has been active in venture capital since 2015. It was founded in Riyadh by three founding partners, Omar Almajdouie, Saed Nashef and Talal Alasmari, as an investor in early-stage technology companies in the Middle East and North Africa.⁠[1][2][3]

RAED Ventures’ portfolio page shows that its 2016 investments included Foodics, Bayzat, Syarah, Crowd Analyzer, Eventtus, Melltoo and Morni.⁠[4]

In September 2017, the Saudi cloud-based point-of-sale startup Foodics closed a $4 million funding round; in October and December of that year, RAED Ventures led Malaeb’s seed round and the $1.4 million seed round of the freight platform Trukker, and took part in the Series A of the beauty e-commerce startup Golden Scent.⁠[5][4]

In April 2018, RAED Ventures invested in the Egyptian startup Swvl; in May it led the seed round of the e-commerce platform Salla; in September it invested in the Egyptian property platform Aqarmap; and in October it took part in a $21 million round in the communications platform Unifonic led by STV.⁠[5][4]

In October 2018, RAED launched RAED Plus, a platform supporting the region’s entrepreneurs that matches portfolio founders with experts, helps with recruiting and provides access to free services; at the time its portfolio included 20 startups.⁠[1][6]

In March 2019, RAED Ventures and STV co-led the Series A of the Saudi on-demand delivery service Mrsool; in June, its portfolio company Noon Academy, an education technology platform, raised an $8.6 million Series A.⁠[5]

In 2020, several RAED Ventures portfolio companies raised funding: in April the Saudi digital B2B wholesale marketplace Sary raised $6.6 million; in June the UAE buy-now-pay-later service Tabby secured $7 million to launch in Saudi Arabia; and in July the Riyadh fintech Lean Technologies closed a $3.5 million seed round.⁠[5]

In June 2021, RAED Ventures and STV co-led a round in the Riyadh fintech Tweeq, which was later acquired. During the year its portfolio companies Opontia, Taager, SimpliFi, Tabby and Syarah announced funding, and in September Unifonic raised a $125 million Series B from SoftBankSoftBank GroupSoftBank Group (SoftBank Group Corp.) is an investment holding company headquartered in Tokyo, founded by Masayoshi Son in 1981. Starting out as a distributor of personal computer software, it moved into the internet, broadband and mobile communications, and has since become an investment group centered on AI-related assets such as Arm, the SoftBank Vision Funds and OpenAI.Open the full entry and Sanabil.⁠[5][4]

On November 8, 2021, RAED Ventures named Wael Nafee, formerly vice president of product and later vice president of the Super App Platform business at Careem, as a partner; as of October 2026, the firm’s website lists him as general partner.⁠[7][3]

In December 2021, RAED Ventures and Saudi Aramco co-led a $5.5 million investment in Lamaa; in January 2022 it led the $5 million seed round of the Saudi social trading platform Dawul; and in February its portfolio company Mozn raised a $10 million Series A.⁠[5]

As of March 2023, RAED Ventures’ portfolio comprised 39 companies, 20 of them based in Saudi Arabia, and the firm had recorded five successful exits.⁠[2]

In May 2023, RAED Ventures began raising its third fund, targeting $150 million to invest in early-stage startups in the Middle East and North Africa.⁠[8]

In May 2024, RAED Ventures and Sanabil Investments co-led the $10 million seed round of SiFi, a Saudi-focused spend management platform.⁠[5]

On September 3, 2024, Riyadh Valley Company announced an investment in the RAED III LP fund, which targets early-stage technology companies with an emphasis on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, in sectors including fintech, transportation services and retail, with a preference for software-as-a-service models.⁠[9]

On January 19, 2025, RAED Ventures announced that it had led the Series A round of the property technology company Rize, totaling SAR 132 million (about $35 million).⁠[5][4]

On February 6, 2025, RAED Ventures announced that Prince Khalid bin Bader Al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, had joined as a venture partner to identify investment opportunities and help startups grow; the firm describes him as co-founder and chairman of the AI-powered collections infrastructure startup ClearGrid and as managing director and vice chairman of East40 Holding, a family office established in 2025.⁠[10][6]

On February 8, the firm announced that Abdulrahman AlfozanAbdulrahman AlfozanAbdulrahman Alfozan is a Saudi Arabian software engineer who worked at Meta, Nash and OpenAI and has been listed as a venture partner at the Riyadh venture capital firm RAED Ventures since 2025. In October 2026, US federal prosecutors charged him with one count of intercepting oral communications, alleging that he installed a covert recording device in an executive conference room at OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters; he is detained pending trial and the case has not been resolved.Open the full entry, then a founding engineer at Nash who had previously worked at MetaMetaMeta (Meta Platforms, Inc.) is a publicly listed American technology company, renamed from Facebook in 2021, that operates social communication, digital advertising, virtual reality, smart glasses and artificial intelligence businesses.Open the full entry, Microsoft and SAP, had joined as a venture partner. In March, its portfolio company ClearGrid raised $10 million in new funding.⁠[11][5]

On October 9, 2025, RAED Ventures announced that Kushal Shah had joined as a growth venture partner.⁠[5]

As of February 2026, RAED Ventures had raised three funds and placed technology and artificial intelligence at the center of its investment strategy.⁠[12]

In April 2026, its portfolio companies Signit and the Saudi fashion platform Aya raised Series A rounds of $15 million and $7 million respectively; in July, Think closed a pre-seed round of more than $8 million, which RAED described as the largest AI infrastructure pre-seed round in the Middle East and North Africa.⁠[5]

In October 2026, US federal prosecutors charged RAED Ventures venture partner Abdulrahman Alfozan with one count of intercepting oral communications, alleging that he installed a covert recording device in an executive conference room at the San Francisco headquarters of his employer, OpenAI; on October 19, a judge ordered him detained pending trial. The case has not been resolved, and a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. RAED Ventures did not respond to questions about whether Alfozan remained associated with the firm; in mid-October, its website still listed him as a venture partner.⁠[13][14][15]

As of October 2026, RAED Ventures’ website listed a team including the three founding partners, general partner Wael Nafee, head of investor relations Husain Fekri, and venture partners Khalid bin Bader Al Saud, Kushal Shah and Abdulrahman Alfozan; its advisors were Seth Levine, Abdulla Elyas and Tino Waked.⁠[3]

Its portfolio page listed 53 companies, seven of which had exited: Tweeq, Crowd Analyzer, Eventtus and Melltoo were acquired, SWVL went public, and Trukker and Syarah were exited.⁠[4]

The firm says it will invest in any sector that is financially, environmentally and socially sustainable, naming fintech, e-commerce, logistics, edtech, digital health, enterprise solutions, entertainment, retail tech, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and SaaS and marketplaces, and its stated goals include financial returns for investors, social impact such as job creation and women’s empowerment, and accelerating the region’s digital innovation ecosystem.⁠[6]

RAED Ventures: Official website: https://raed.vc/ (opens in a new window)⁠[3]

X: Official account: https://x.com/raedvc (opens in a new window)⁠[3]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Official account: https://www.linkedin.com/company/raedvc (opens in a new window)⁠[3]