Saudi Telecom doubles down on Ex-Google executive’s tech firm

Saudi Telecom Company, the kingdom’s largest phone operator, plans to invest an additional $300m in STV, a venture capital firm started by ex-Google executive Abdulrahman Tarabzouni.

The backing comes after Saudi Telecom provided all of the $500m in capital for STV’s first fund when it was formed. The new funding will be used for the firm’s target of “backing and scaling the region’s digital champions,” it said in a statement.

A computer science graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tarabzouni worked at Morgan Stanley and Oracle Corp. before becoming head of emerging Arabia at Google in 2009. He subsequently held a number of roles at the search giant before leaving Silicon Valley to lead the launch of STV.

STV was in talks with Middle East sovereign wealth funds and international pension funds as it sought to raise at least $1bn for its second Middle East technology investment fund, Bloomberg reported last October.

Interest in the technology industry in the Middle East has increased the past few years as governments seek to diversify their energy-dependent economies.