Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia, through his KBW Ventures, has recently invested in two MENA-based startups – NoorNation, an Egypt-based renewable energy startup; and KASO, a Saudi Arabia-based restaurant supply management platform.
Founded in 2020 by Ragy Ramadan, NoorNation facilitates technology-backed decentralized energy and water infrastructure solutions to the off-grid sector across Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa. The company raised Pre-Seed round back in February from Nairobi, Kenya-based Catalyst Fund.
“This is the first startup from Egypt that we have invested in. I did a fact-finding visit to Egypt five-six years ago – mostly thinking about the sustainability and energy potential there, but nothing tangible came to fruition until I saw the NoorNation pitch,” said Prince Khaled.
NoorNation was named the Best Green Tech Startup of the Year across Northern Africa by the Global Startup Awards 2024 where it was chosen out of 180 startups. The company showcased its LifeBox product at the event.
Speaking of LifeBox, Ragy Ramadan, founder and CEO, NoorNation said,
“LifeBox is a solar-powered, self-contained, and quickly deployed unit that directly contributes to the industrial localisation movement and sustainability governance. It gives peace of mind to our customers, farming and tourism businesses, and rural communities to achieve their triple bottom lines: social, financial, and environmental growth,” he said
KASO was founded in 2021 by Manar AlKassar and Ahmed Soliman as a B2B platform that streamlines vendor logistics in the F&B sector through digitizing and automating procurement between restaurants and food suppliers.
Speaking of KASO, Prince Khaled indicated that KBW was eyeing investment opportunities in B2B Software as a Service (SaaS) domain, and KASO was an ideal catch.
“We want to grow our allocation into B2B software as a service (SaaS),” said Prince Khaled “KASO not only checks the boxes on return parameters; we also like to see visibility of 10x return for early-stage opportunities.” he added
Prince Khaled is known for his broad investment portfolio in the sustainability and agritech sector which includes San Francisco-based Back To The Roots, San Diego-based BlueNalu, Berkley-based Memphis Meats, Singapore-based TurtleTree Labs, Paris-based Furahaa Group, Oakland-based Eclipse Foods, and Boulder, Colorado-based Bond Pet Foods among others.
