Red Sea Global, the developer behind the Red Sea and AMAALA regenerative tourism destinations, has partnered with Bunat Ventures to launch a venture fund focused on AI-driven startups in Saudi Arabia.
The AI Venture Fund will invest in early- and growth-stage companies that are either AI-native or use AI as a core component of their business models. Over the next three years, the fund plans to back around 25 startups through a mix of pre-seed and growth-stage investments.
In addition to capital, portfolio companies will be able to test and deploy their technologies within Red Sea Global’s operating environment, including access to live infrastructure and operational use cases across its tourism and hospitality assets.
Founded in 2022 by Khaled Zainalabedin and Khalid Saad, Bunat Ventures operates a hybrid model that combines a venture studio with an operational VC approach.
Through its venture studio, Bunat incubates and launches companies at the pre-seed and seed stage, working closely with founders to validate ideas and build profitable, sustainable businesses. Alongside this, the firm invests in early-stage to Series B companies, providing hands-on operational support and follow-on capital.
The ADGM-HQ’d outfit was an early backer of the crypto platform CoinMENA, which was recently acquired by Paribu in a deal worth up to $240M, and led the pre-seed round of Saudi quick commerce unicorn Ninja, which is preparing for a public market listing in the near future.
The fund will prioritise Saudi-based founders, as well as Saudi-founded companies expanding into the Kingdom, and is intended to support the development of locally built AI companies.
