{"id":45378,"date":"2025-05-14T18:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T15:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entarabi.com\/?p=45378"},"modified":"2025-05-14T19:58:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T16:58:27","slug":"stv-launches-100m-ai-fund-in-partnership-with-google-to-back-mena-startups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entarabi.com\/en\/2025\/05\/stv-launches-100m-ai-fund-in-partnership-with-google-to-back-mena-startups\/","title":{"rendered":"STV Launches $100M AI Fund in Partnership with Google to Back MENA Startups"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left;\" data-start=\"326\" data-end=\"679\">\n<li data-start=\"326\" data-end=\"464\">\n<p data-start=\"328\" data-end=\"464\">STV announces a $100 million AI-focused fund in collaboration with Google to support startups across the Middle East and North Africa.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"465\" data-end=\"567\">\n<p data-start=\"467\" data-end=\"567\">In 2024, only 1.5% of VC funding in MENA went to AI, compared to 38% in the U.S. and 13% in India.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"568\" data-end=\"679\">\n<p data-start=\"570\" data-end=\"679\">The fund will focus on AI-driven applications, local models, and the infrastructure required to support them.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left;\" data-start=\"681\" data-end=\"904\"><strong data-start=\"705\" data-end=\"712\">STV<\/strong> has announced the launch of its <strong data-start=\"745\" data-end=\"769\">$100 million AI Fund<\/strong>, dedicated to supporting <strong data-start=\"795\" data-end=\"817\">AI-native startups<\/strong> across the <strong data-start=\"829\" data-end=\"861\">Middle East and North Africa<\/strong>, in strategic <strong data-start=\"876\" data-end=\"903\">partnership with Google<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left;\" data-start=\"906\" data-end=\"1070\">The company revealed that <strong data-start=\"932\" data-end=\"1006\">only 1.5% of venture capital in the region was allocated to AI in 2024<\/strong>, compared to <strong data-start=\"1020\" data-end=\"1048\">38% in the United States<\/strong> and <strong data-start=\"1053\" data-end=\"1069\">13% in India<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left;\" data-start=\"1072\" data-end=\"1379\">This disparity highlights an <strong data-start=\"1101\" data-end=\"1165\">untapped opportunity to drive innovation and economic growth<\/strong>, along with operational efficiencies. STV estimates that the <strong data-start=\"1227\" data-end=\"1306\">immediate return from AI technologies in Gulf countries exceeds $23 billion<\/strong>, with long-term potential that could multiply this figure significantly.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left;\" data-start=\"1381\" data-end=\"1433\"><strong data-start=\"1381\" data-end=\"1422\">Ahmed Alnaimi, General Partner at STV<\/strong>, stated:<\/p>\n<blockquote dir=\"ltr\" data-start=\"1434\" data-end=\"1647\">\n<p data-start=\"1436\" data-end=\"1647\">\u201cThe most value in AI will be at the application layer. That\u2019s why the AI Fund will focus on investing in startups building AI-native applications, local models, and the infrastructure required to support them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left;\" data-start=\"1649\" data-end=\"1746\"><strong data-start=\"1649\" data-end=\"1736\">Najeeb Jarrar, Regional Marketing Director at Google for the Middle East and Africa<\/strong>, added:<\/p>\n<blockquote dir=\"ltr\" data-start=\"1747\" data-end=\"1947\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" data-start=\"1749\" data-end=\"1947\">\u201cAt Google, we\u2019re committed to making AI opportunities accessible to everyone. That includes initiatives like the MENA AI Opportunity launched last year, along with the Google for Startups program.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>STV announces a $100 million AI-focused fund in collaboration with Google to support startups across the Middle East and North Africa. In 2024, only 1.5% of VC funding in MENA went to AI, compared to 38% in the U.S. and 13% in India. The fund will focus on AI-driven applications, local models, and the infrastructure [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":45374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"post_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1810],"tags":[5362,3168],"class_list":["post-45378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fintech","tag-google-en","tag-stv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entarabi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entarabi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entarabi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entarabi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entarabi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entarabi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entarabi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entarabi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entarabi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entarabi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}