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Open Call
It’s a big day at Newlab as we announce our expansion into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
This is an exciting step in our strategy to establish a global network of innovation hubs in geographies that are uniquely positioned to advance the commercialization of critical technologies in our key sectors of focus.
Newlab is scaling rapidly in response to demand from global governments and industry leaders that are facing an unprecedented imperative to adapt and diversify in response to rising pressures tied to climate change, geopolitical tensions, the rapid emergence of AI, and other macro forces.
Each Newlab location is anchored by a public-private partnership that aligns strategic infrastructure, partners, and resources. We leverage these to attract leading startups from around the world and accelerate their growth to drive economic impact.
The Kingdom’s economic transition represents a generational opportunity to catalyze a globally-relevant critical tech ecosystem.
We choose new markets that we believe have differentiated advantages that can be leveraged to help startups scale faster. These advantages can be tied to a location’s natural resources, density of strategic supply chains, or concentration of strategic infrastructure, capital, or industrial end users.
KSA has many of these, from legacy infrastructure and a workforce that is extensible for future value chains to low-cost energy that derisks large-scale capital development. But one of the Kingdom’s strongest advantages is its imperative to diversify its economy away from oil and gas. This is driving unprecedented urgency and investment that creates an equally unprecedented opportunity for startups developing technologies that can advance the Kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030 objectives by accelerating growth across strategic sectors including mining, logistics, renewable energy, and advanced manufacturing.
Through our expansion into the region, Newlab is partnering with public and private sector stakeholders to harness the Kingdom’s structural advantages along with its Vision 2030 commitments to catalyze a critical tech ecosystem.
Several key factors drove our conviction in the Kingdom.
1. Responsive policy: Regulation is a significant barrier for most critical tech startups. Governments that are willing to write policies that reduce these barriers will have substantial competitive advantages over other markets. Through our integrated public-private partnership in KSA, Newlab is collaborating with regulators across ministries to shape policies aimed at reducing barriers around testing and demonstration as well as developing new frameworks to incentivize and de-risk scale-up infrastructure development for critical-tech startups.
2. Geographic advantage: KSA’s location along key trade routes makes it a gateway to the Middle East, North Africa (MENA), and Asia, and a strong home base for startups looking to scale into the region and other global markets.
3. Strong local demand: National champions like Aramco, Sabic, and others represent a strong and sophisticated demand base and high-potential supply chain partners for startups. In addition to the existing industry landscape, the Kingdom is developing new infrastructure at an unprecedented rate and scale. These government-led mega-projects like NEOM, King Salman Park, the Red Sea Project, and others represent platforms to integrate and scale critical technologies.
4. Diversified capital sources: In line with its economic diversification strategy, KSA has developed a range of capital vehicles to support startups—such as the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Saudi Venture Capital (SVC)—to complement its robust corporate venture capital landscape, which includes major players like Aramco Ventures.
KSA also has a concentration of industrial families whose next generations are thinking about wealth diversification and preservation and starting to pool risk capital through coordinated angel networks.
Finally, the Kingdom is establishing new authorities like the Research Development and Innovation Authority that will increase non-dilutive funding support across the commercialization spectrum.
5. Rising generation of talent committed to shaping the Kingdom’s future: KSA is making significant investments to nurture a highly educated workforce and produce a steady stream of talent with the technical and business skills to thrive in future economies.
The energy, passion and commitment of young talent in the country to reshape KSA and redefine the Kingdom’s role in the world has blown us away. Muneef AlMuneef is one example. We are thrilled to have him serve as the Managing Director of Newlab Riyadh, bringing more than 16 years of experience in strategic roles across the public and private sectors.
Newlab Riyadh is the first of many new locations we will activate in the next 24-36 months. As we chart our global expansion, we are actively seeking public and private partners in strategic geographies who may be interested in bringing Newlab to their region. Get in touch with us here.
