Abu Dhabi - Sharikat Mubasher: The Presight-Shorooq Fund I, a $100 million global AI innovation fund launched by Presight and Shorooq Partners, has invested in five leading-edge AI startups since its launch in September 2025.
The investments were led by experienced alumni from DeepMind, Google X, Meta, and Stanford across the US and UAE markets, according to the official statement.
The five companies are Nodeshift, Candid, Hebbia, Blue, and Crunched. They represent a strategic cross-section of frontier intelligence, spanning from agentic reasoning and physical AI to sovereign cloud.
Across these investments, the Presight-Shorooq Fund I has partnered with some of the most respected names in global venture capital and technology.
Commenting on this milestone, Bilal Baloch, Partner at Shorooq, said: “When we launched this fund, our vision was to connect world-class AI innovators with the capital, regulatory support, and market access that our region offers. To have invested in five highly promising companies, after assessing over 1000, outside our home market alongside leading peers in the US and Asia in 120 days is a marker toward that vision.”
In turn, Magzhan Kenesbai, Chief Growth Officer of Presight, stated that the fund enables the company to create clear pathways from innovation to implementation, translating frontier AI into intelligent systems at scale.
“AI only creates lasting value when it can operate within real systems. These first investments reflect that conviction – spanning secure AI infrastructure, vertical intelligence platforms for capital and industry, and edge-native systems. Each of these companies is building technology designed for integration into complex, regulated environments,” he added.
The investments range from agentic reasoning to sovereign cloud infrastructure. They include a $6 million seed round for Candid, a $6 million round for Crunched, $5.5 million for Blue, and $1 million for Abu Dhabi-based sovereign cloud platform NodeShift. The fund also participated in an undisclosed round for enterprise AI firm Hebbia.
