Abu Dhabi’s AI capital strategy is beginning to translate into deal flow.

The Presight–Shorooq Fund I, a $100 million artificial intelligence-focused venture vehicle backed by Presight, a G42 company, and venture firm Shorooq, has invested in five startups within roughly four months of launching in September 2025, according to a company statement.

The fund said it reviewed more than 1,000 companies and completed the five investments in approximately 120 days, signaling an accelerated deployment pace for a first-time vehicle.

Infrastructure, Enterprise AI, and Vertical Applications

The early portfolio reflects a mix of infrastructure-layer bets and applied AI companies targeting specific industries.

NodeShift, described as a sovereign AI cloud platform, raised a $1 million seed round in Abu Dhabi. The company focuses on localized AI cloud infrastructure, positioning itself within a growing global debate around data sovereignty and national AI compute stacks.

Hebbia, an enterprise AI platform, develops tools designed to handle complex analytical workflows, particularly in finance and knowledge-heavy sectors. The company operates at the intersection of large language models and institutional-grade research processes.

Candid, a construction-focused AI startup based in San Francisco, raised a $6 million seed round. The company applies AI to optimize construction planning and execution, an industry that has historically lagged in digitization and productivity gains.

Blue is building what it calls a mobile “action model” AI designed not just to respond to prompts but to execute tasks directly through smartphone interfaces. The company raised a $5.5 million pre-seed round and is targeting consumer-facing AI interaction layers.

Crunched raised a $6 million seed round to develop AI tools for spreadsheet-heavy finance workflows, aiming to automate manual modeling and analysis processes common in investment and corporate finance teams.

The fund co-invested alongside venture firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Google Ventures and Y Combinator.

Dr. Bilal Baloch, Partner at Shorooq and head of the fund, said, “We aim to connect world-class AI innovators with the capital and strategic support they need to scale from the UAE to the world.”

Presight Chief Growth Officer Magzhan Kenesbai added “We are focused on AI that can operate within real systems — in regulated, complex environments — and move from innovation to implementation.”

From Capital to Commercialization

Unlike purely financial VC vehicles, the Presight–Shorooq Fund is structured around Presight’s enterprise footprint and G42’s broader AI infrastructure ecosystem.

The model suggests an effort to move beyond passive capital deployment toward commercialization pathways, particularly in regulated sectors such as finance, smart cities, energy, and Industry 4.0, which the fund lists as core focus areas.

While sovereign AI ambitions have proliferated across the Gulf, venture deployment tied directly to implementation infrastructure remains less common. The pace of the fund’s first-quarter activity suggests a push to translate its AI positioning into tangible equity stakes.

Whether that strategy generates sustained pipeline access and eventual exits will likely depend on how effectively regional infrastructure can serve as a growth channel for globally sourced AI startups.

For now, the fund’s early activity signals that Abu Dhabi’s AI investment thesis is moving from narrative to capital allocation.