Silicon Valley investor plans $100m Saudi Arabia VC fund

Silicon Valley-based tech investor Plug and Play Tech Center, an early backer of firms including Dropbox and PayPal Holdings, is looking to raise $100m to invest in Saudi tech startups, potentially with backing from a unit of the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund.

Plug and Play is in talks with Jada, a $1bn fund of funds established by the Saudi wealth fund to help kick-start the domestic venture capital industry, Saeed Amidi, the firm’s founder and CEO, said in an interview in Riyadh.

Fund launch timeline

The fund is set to be launched by January, with Plug and Play contributing as much as 10 per cent of the total and the rest raised from Saudi funds and family offices, he said. Plug and Play is starting the fund because the quality of Saudi startups has improved over the past few years, Amidi said.

“We are not going to lower our standards,” he said. “We invest in the US, Germany — our quality control is not going to change just because it’s Saudi Arabia, and if I cannot find startups as high quality I will not invest.”

Saudi Arabia is looking to promote entrepreneurs and the venture capital industry as part of push to diversify its oil-dependent economy and create private-sector jobs. Jada also backed a $50m Middle East fund managed by Hambro Perks in 2021.

Plug and Play manages a portfolio of five funds, totaling $500m, and has plans to establish five more, Amidi said.

 

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