Wamda: BLOMINVEST partners with Flat6Labs to fund Saudi startups

• Saudi Arabia-based asset manager BLOMINVEST has partnered with Egypt’s Flat6Labs to launch a fund targeting early-stage startups in the Saudi market. The size of the fund was not disclosed. 
• Founded in 2009, BLOMINVEST is an Investment Management company that provides investment services to KSA investors, including real estate funds, asset management, advisory, and corporate finance, with a paid-up capital of SAR245 million.
• Flat6Labs is a Mena-focusing seed and early-stage venture capital firm, launched in Cairo in 2011, it has invested in more than 100 innovative and technology-driven startups with a total AUM in excess of $85 million. 

Leading KSA-based Asset Manager BLOMINVEST has announced a new partnership with Flat6Labs, one of the Mena region’s largest Seed-stage VC firms, to launch funds targeting early-stage startups in the Saudi market. Flat6Labs runs some of the region’s most notable startup programmes and invests in 100 tech startups a year. Its Seed-stage VC funds and programmes support startups during their initial operations, through a highly diversified and structured investment process that aims to reduce the challenges and costs typically faced by early-stage startups.

Abdullah Al-Rashoud, CEO of BLOMINVEST, added: “This partnership came in light of the recent structural reforms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which has positioned the country as major contender for establishing and operating regional startups, supported by the significant increase in venture capital funds and the increase in merger and acquisition activity targeting emerging companies in the Saudi market. We expect greater market depth to come as more international companies look to launch their regional businesses from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to serve the rest of the Middle East and North Africa region.”

Eyad Albayouk, General Manager of Flat6Labs KSA, also explained that “We are excited about our partnership with BlomInvest and look forward to being an active contributor to the KSA ecosystem. Flat6Labs sees KSA as one of the very few markets in MENA that combine key elements for startup success – namely: size, political stability, growth, and a relatively well-structured and digitized business environment. It comes as no surprise that KSA has recently experienced a 6-fold increase in VC funding since 2016, in light of these structural reforms.”