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The Innovative Startups and SMEs Fund (ISSF), Jordan's government-backed fund of funds, has announced a partnership with STV that brings the Saudi firm's Google-backed AI Fund into Jordan, giving Jordanian AI founders access to the region's largest venture investor. The financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.
STV launched the $100 million AI Fund in May 2025 with backing from Google, the tech giant's first investment in a MENA venture firm, to back application-layer AI, localised models and supporting infrastructure across the region. STV's research at launch found just 1.5% of MENA venture funding went to AI startups in 2024, against 38% in the US and 13% in India, the gap the fund was built to close.
The vehicle, since branded STV's Emerging Tech & AI Fund, has been steadily adding commitments, most recently from SAB, alongside semi-sovereign entities, endowments and institutional investors across the region. It has deployed into four AI-native startups to date, Sawt, Clarity, Signit and Stream, spanning customer-service AI, analytics, legal tech and payments infrastructure, and joined Signit's $15 million Series A in May.
ISSF framed the partnership as a bridge between complementary strengths, Jordan's deep technical talent and Saudi Arabia's scale and capital, arguing that it gives Jordanian founders a direct route into one of the fastest-moving markets in the world while letting opportunity flow back the other way.
Created in 2018 with $50 million from the World Bank and $48 million from the Central Bank of Jordan, ISSF completed its first investment cycle in 2025 and has opened its second phase with a run of fund partnerships, committing $7 million to Endeavor Catalyst V last month, more than triple its earlier ticket into Catalyst III, to plug Jordanian startups into Endeavor's global network.
For STV, which manages more than $2 billion in assets with a portfolio including Tabby, Salla, Foodics and Calo, the partnership extends a fund whose remit was always regional beyond its Riyadh base, into a market that has produced founders including Replit's Amjad Masad, the Jordanian-born builder of Endeavor's first Jordan-flagged unicorn.
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