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Chinese venture capital firm MSA Capital, which is backed by a unit of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), has plans to raise $1 billion to provide financing for technology start-ups in the Middle East, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
MSA Capital is likely to launch the fund within 2024, the news agency quoted MSA Capital’s Managing Partner Ben Harburg as saying.
“Our objective is to play at later stages and write bigger tickets in those pre-IPO rounds, then we can take them public,” Harburg said.
He said the company is in talks with investors in the region to proceed with the plan.
MSA has around $2.5 billion in assets under management. It is backed by the Jada Fund of Funds, a unit of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has been investing in several start-ups, as it looks to meet the Vision 2030 goals.
Start-ups in the kingdom have been dominating the venture fundraising space, securing around $1.3 billion in capital in 2023 alone, according to MAGNiTT.
(Writing by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Seban Scaria)
