The Presight–Shorooq Fund I, a $100 million AI-focused venture fund based in Abu Dhabi, said it has completed investments in five startups within roughly its first quarter of operations since launching in September 2025. The companies span the United States and the UAE and operate across infrastructure, finance, construction technology, and voice-enabled AI. The announcement signals an early deployment pace that both firms are positioning as evidence of strong deal flow and a fast-moving investment mandate.
Fund Launch and Early Deployment
The fund was formed through a partnership between Presight, the AI and data analytics company under G42, and investment firm Shorooq, with a stated goal of connecting global AI startups to UAE infrastructure and regional growth channels. According to the release, the first set of investments reflects a mix of “frontier” AI themes, including agentic systems, vertical intelligence platforms, and sovereign cloud infrastructure. The initial portfolio includes NodeShift, Candid, Hebbia, Blue, and Crunched.
Shorooq said the team reviewed more than 1,000 opportunities before selecting the first five companies, highlighting a screening process that extended beyond its traditional home markets. The firm also emphasized that the deals were completed alongside investors in the U.S. and Asia within about 120 days of launch. In its remarks, Shorooq framed the early activity as the start of a broader effort to link regional capital and market access with international AI founders.
Investment Thesis and Backing Network
Presight and Shorooq described their approach as focused on AI-native businesses with durable advantages in data, distribution, or infrastructure control, rather than generic applications with limited defensibility. The fund also pointed to the founders’ backgrounds, noting ties to organizations such as DeepMind, Google X, Meta, and Stanford as part of its selection rationale. The companies in the first cohort are backed by a wider syndicate that includes venture firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, GV, Quiet Capital, First Round Capital, and Y Combinator, according to the release.
Presight’s leadership positioned the investments as part of a strategy to move AI from experimentation into deployment inside regulated and operationally complex environments. That framing aligns with the mix of portfolio companies, which includes infrastructure platforms and industry-specific tools aimed at finance and industrial workflows. The underlying message is that practical integration, security, and system compatibility remain central to enterprise AI adoption, especially in sectors with strict governance requirements.
Portfolio Snapshot
NodeShift, based in the UAE, received a $1 million seed investment for a sovereign AI cloud platform built for secure, onshore data processing and lower-cost GPU workloads. In the U.S., Candid raised a $6 million seed round for AI software that streamlines engineering and construction bidding by analyzing project documents to improve speed and accuracy. Both investments reflect the fund’s focus on practical, infrastructure and workflow-driven AI applications.
Hebbia, a New York-based enterprise AI startup, received an undisclosed investment for tools serving finance, law, and government, with an emphasis on complex analysis and citation-backed outputs. San Francisco-based Blue and Crunched complete the first five investments, with Blue raising $5.5 million for a mobile voice-action AI system and Crunched raising $6 million for an AI spreadsheet assistant for consulting and finance users. Together, the portfolio spans sovereign cloud, enterprise intelligence, voice AI, and professional workflow automation.
The first-quarter deployment by Presight–Shorooq Fund I shows a clear preference for infrastructure-led and enterprise-oriented AI bets rather than broad consumer experimentation. By combining Abu Dhabi-based institutional access with co-investment relationships across major venture networks, the fund is positioning itself as a cross-border gateway for startups seeking both capital and implementation pathways. If the early pace continues, the fund could become a notable channel linking UAE AI ambitions with global startup execution in the next phase of market growth.