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Wa’ed Ventures, a $500 million venture capital firm wholly owned by Saudi Aramco, is investing in edtech start-up Noon.
The VC firm co-led a $41 million fundraising for the start-up with Raed Ventures, according to a statement on Friday.
The Series B round was also participated by SVC, STV, Riyadh Valley Company, Endeavor, Sanabil 500, Qyem Development Holding and Nahlat Alarab Holding, among other strategic investors.
Saudi-based Noon is an educational platform that provides peer-to-peer learning experience to students in emerging countries.
The platform has been ranked among the top edtech start-ups in the Middle East by number of registered students and funds raised to date.
Since its inception in 2013, Noon has served more than 12 million students across Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt and Pakistan. It aims to cater to 190 million students across the current markets and expand globally within the next two to three years.
With its adoption of artificial intelligence, the company expects to maintain its regional position as a learning platform.
“Noon has become one of the very few emerging companies to establish a lasting impact on the regional start-up ecosystem by being both a successful business model in a typically challenging sector, and a true agent of change,” said Fahad Alidi, Managing Director of Wa’ed Ventures.
(Writing by Cleofe Maceda; editing by Seban Scaria)
