Riyadh-based AI infrastructure startup Think has secured over $8 million in a pre-seed funding round, marking one of the largest early-stage investments for a deeptech company in the MENA region. The startup develops integrated hardware and software to significantly reduce the cost and complexity of running powerful AI models for enterprises.
Quick Facts
- Funding: Over $8 million in a pre-seed round.
- Investors: Co-led by RAED Ventures and Wa’ed Ventures.
- Mission: Make AI infrastructure more efficient and sovereign.
The round was co-led by RAED Ventures and Aramco’s Wa’ed Ventures, with participation from Dhahran Techno Valley’s venture capital arm and strategic angel investors. The new capital is set to fuel team expansion, scale manufacturing, and accelerate product deployments across Saudi Arabia and the GCC.
A New Approach to AI Efficiency
Think is positioning itself as a solution to a growing problem in the AI industry: the soaring costs and inefficiency of current infrastructure. While many companies focus on building bigger models, Think is concentrating on making the underlying hardware work smarter. Its platform combines high-density, liquid-cooled hardware with a proprietary orchestration software called ILM.
The company claims that in production testing, its platform achieves sustained GPU utilization above 90%, a stark contrast to the industry average of 30-50%. This efficiency gain translates to a per-million-token cost that is nearly 10 times lower than using major models from providers like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
“As the industry moves beyond the race for bigger models and larger data centres, a new age of efficiency is beginning,” said Ahmed AlSharif, CEO of Think. “AI infrastructure today is expensive, inefficient, and increasingly difficult to scale. Think exists to help organisations do more with the compute they already have.”
Solving for Sovereignty and Spiraling Costs
For many government and commercial entities in Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC, the high cost of GPUs and concerns over data sovereignty are pushing them to find alternatives to global hyperscale cloud providers. Think’s model allows companies to own their AI infrastructure outright, giving them full control over their data and costs.
“Our customers want the benefits of AI without the spiralling costs, security concerns, and dependence associated with hyperscale cloud providers,” explained Ammar Enaya, co-founder of Think. “We’re seeing strong demand from enterprises, start-ups and government organisations looking for infrastructure that delivers the performance they need, with an approach that gives them total control and ownership.”
The company is already running proofs of concept and production deployments in Saudi Arabia, including collaborations with the Kingdom’s national AI company, HUMAIN.
Investor Confidence
The funding round brings together key institutional investors who see significant potential in building sovereign AI infrastructure from within the Kingdom.
“The next generation of AI leaders will be defined not only by the models they build, but by the infrastructure that makes AI practical, affordable and sovereign,” commented Wael Nafee, General Partner at RAED Ventures. “We believe the team is building a category-defining company from Saudi Arabia with global potential.”
Eng. Anas Algahtani, CEO of Wa’ed Ventures, added, “Saudi Arabia has a unique opportunity not only to adopt AI, but to build the infrastructure that powers it. Think is resolving one of the industry’s biggest challenges by making AI deployment more efficient, scalable and sovereign.”
GCC Expansion on the Horizon
With the fresh funding, Think plans to accelerate its commercial deployments in Saudi Arabia and expand its presence across the GCC over the next 18 months. A key part of its strategy involves further developing its ILM orchestration software into a standalone platform, supporting the Kingdom’s ambition to become a global hub for AI infrastructure.
About Think
Founded by Ahmed AlSharif, a former executive at Meta and Sony PlayStation, and Ammar Enaya, a veteran of Cisco and HPE Aruba, Think builds intelligent, unified hardware and software for artificial intelligence. The Saudi-based company focuses on maximizing GPU utilization and lowering the cost of AI model deployment for enterprises, offering an alternative to traditional cloud providers.
Source: Middle East AI News
