FY2022 KSA Venture Investment Report

The FY2022 Saudi Arabia (KSA) Venture Investment Report is one of MAGNiTT's flagship reports that provides a yearly update on the venture capital and startup ecosystem in the Kingdom.

2022 was the year of Venture Capital (VC) outshine for Saudi Arabia. Funding in the Kingdom rose by 72% to register its all time high level of $987M, few steps away from hitting the $1Bn mark, with only five less deals than the number closed in 2021. The Kingdom captured a third of the MENA region’s $3.2Bn record funding.

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The improvement in KSA’s funding level was backed by a rise in the values of non-MEGA deals and $100M+ deals. Saudi Arabia recorded three MEGA Rounds, the highest ever in a single year, not just for the geography but also for the MENA region. The capital deployed in the three deals drove 37% of the funding for the geography in 2022. The impact of larger-sized rounds was reflected in the numbers as $20M+ rounds saw a year-on-year increase of 157% compared to 2021 accounting for almost 75% of the total capital deployed in the Kingdom in 2022 signaling an incline of over 20PP.

To that avail, the deal share of larger-sized rounds saw a 100% increase, resulting in inflated average and Median round sizes. The MEAN round size in Saudi Arabia grew by 75% to reach a new record of $7.5M while the Median round size reached $1.9M by the end of 2022. Series B continues to observe a notable spike driven by Unifonic in 2021 and Foodics’ and Tamara’s $100M+ rounds in 2022. However, the most remarkable growth in the year was at the Series A level, where the average round size more than doubled inching upwards by 154% driven by sizable investments in startups like Classera and MasterWorks.

Echoing the performance of the MENA region, FinTech led the Kingdom’s industries in both funding and deals. Food & Beverages and Transport & Logistics followed at the level of funding with all three industries being supported by the MEGA rounds closed by FinTech Tamara, F&B Foodics and T&L TruKKer.

In a look at the investor landscape in Saudi Arabia, active investors in the Kingdom’s ecosystem rose from 80 in 2021 to 104 in 2022, an annual increase of 30%. The breakdown by investor type reflects a Venture Capital firms focus whereby the latter captured half the total number of investors. At the level of headquarter breakdown, Saudi-headquartered investors captured the lion’s share with 56% of total investors being local. The remaining 44$ were broken down between MENA (non-KSA) investors and international investors, whereby the former captured 25% and the latter 19%. The share of international investors has been steady between 2020 and 2022, after doubling between 2019 and 2020.

In a year of record highs, M&A transactions in the Kingdom touched their highest levels reporting double the number of exits seen in 2021. Ten exits were reported in Saudi Arabia in 2022 with E-commerce being the industry with highest number of exits for the year. The M&A transactions captured startups that were founded between two and six years ago.

What’s In The Report?

This yearly report provides a comprehensive overview and a deep dive into the KSA venture capital and funding investment space and includes the following:

• Top 20 investor ranking, together with the investor type and HQ analysis of all investment firms in the region

• Top 20 startup funding rounds that were closed during the analyzed period, as well as the ticket size split of the entire deal flow

• A 5-year KSA exit evolution with country benchmark breakdown

• Top 10 last exits recorded by KSA-based startups

Who will benefit from the report?

This report is ideal for investors tracking startup activity, consultants looking to identify technology innovation trends, as well as government entities searching for investments.

This report was created with data from MAGNiTT, a comprehensive directory of technology innovation trends. The platform provides the following analytics tools:

• Investment directories, a comprehensive list of all startup venture funding across the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, and Turkey

• Market Sizing Tools to visualize investment growth and trends across industries, geographies, and stage

• Comparison Tools to benchmark geographies, industries and investor performance

• Exit comparisons, looking at Mergers & Acquisitions from across the region

Learn how MAGNiTT's proprietary data can help your business. Contact us now!

*This report aggregates and analyses tech startup investments in 17 countries in the Middle East and North Africa - listed alphabetically: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia (KSA), Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen.

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