The Global Entrepreneurship Congress, a conference gathering investors, policymakers and community leaders from around the world to focus on the startup space, is underway in Riyadh with big announced investments into the important sector for the Kingdom’s diversification goals.
Four startups – including three e-commerce companies and a HealthTech – a leading global accelerator and a venture capital fund will invest up to $608.25 million in Saudi Arabia, creating 2,400 jobs, Saudi Arabia’s SPA said in a story.
The new licenses were announced by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC), and are evidence of the Kingdom’s burgeoning start-up and venture capital ecosystem.
“As the world continues to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, entrepreneurs are shaping our ‘new normal’. In Saudi Arabia the start-up scene is thriving, and there is enormous potential for venture capitalists. An enhanced regulatory environment and our recently launched National Investment Strategy are unleashing opportunities not previously available in the Kingdom and these new investments are a result of the economic transformation happening now under Vision 2030,” Eng. Khalid Al Falih, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Investment, said in a statement carried by the SPA.
The Ministry also announced the signing of two MOUs with Saudi entities: Monshaat, and the Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence, to further support start-ups in the Kingdom. The deals and MoUs announced by the Ministry are the “latest demonstration of the Ministry’s commitment to supporting and growing the Kingdom’s entrepreneurship ecosystem, and follows last week’s announcement of a partnership with JADA Fund of Funds to stimulate the Kingdom’s burgeoning start-up sector through a new ‘Catalyze Saudi’ engagement platform,” according to the report.
The Global Entrepreneurship Congress will run until March 30.
