Wa'ed Ventures Fuels Saudi Cloud Localization With Strategic Ori Investment

Ori, the UK's leading provider of cloud infrastructure for AI, has secured a key strategic investment from Wa'ed Ventures, Saudi Aramco's venture capital arm, as it eyes up explosive growth in the Middle East market over the coming 12 months. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed.

The announcement comes hot on the heels of news that Ori was one of the UK's first AI infrastructure companies to deploy Nvidia's H200 chips as the startup positions itself as the go-to AI infrastructure provider of choice in the UK, Middle East, and globally.

Ori is a UK-based startup that enables large-scale AI model training, inference, and deployment for large corporates, enterprises, and fast-growth AI scaleups through its cloud platform. Since launch in 2019, the business has rapidly scaled to a presence in over 20 locations, predominantly across North America and Europe.

Now the fast-growth startup is eyeing a rapid growth into the Middle East as the region's demand for AI infrastructure balloons. With Wa'ed Ventures' strategic backing, Ori will accelerate its localization in Saudi Arabia, where it will power AI innovation across the region.

Ori's localization in Saudi Arabia will kick off with the launch of a regional subsidiary based in Riyadh. The new subsidiary will focus on fostering talent as a direct contribution supporting the country's Vision 2030 initiative to advance technology and innovation.

Wa'ed Ventures is the VC arm of Saudi Aramco, the petroleum and natural gas giant– the world's fourth largest company by revenue as of 2024. The $500 million fund invests in industry-leading tech startups across various technology verticals.

The Saudi Arabian fund moved its sights internationally in 2022 looking for founders who can localize leading technology platforms and services into the Saudi Arabian market as the nation seeks to strengthen its capabilities in key technology verticals such as artificial intelligence.

The fund has recently backed startups including the AI chipmaker Rebellions, and real estate Fintech company Stake.

Ori recently raised £14 million in investment and already has another, larger raise underway which is due to complete in 2025. The firm is partnered with leading global technology firms including Nvidia, Supermicro, WEKA, and Vast, and is backed by investors including Episode 1 Ventures, Telefónica, OurCrowd, and Vauban.

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