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The Emirates Intelligencer

An Independent Daily Bulletin on Artificial-Intelligence Investment, Adoption and Deployment. Published by otonomi.co

Vol. I., No. 60 Saturday, August 29, 2026 From the Archive
AI Capital

Presight Shorooq Fund Places First Bets Across The AI Stack

The Abu Dhabi vehicle is moving from fund formation to deployment, giving enterprise AI founders a new capital route anchored in the UAE ecosystem.

By The Otonomi Investment Desk

The Presight Shorooq Fund I, a $100 million global artificial intelligence innovation fund launched in September 2025, has deployed capital into five companies in its first quarter across the United States and UAE markets. The fund said the investments followed a review of more than 1,000 companies and were completed within 120 days.

The first investments include Nodeshift, Candid, Hebbia, Blue and Crunched, covering cloud infrastructure, engineering and construction bidding, enterprise knowledge work and other AI applications. The fund said Nodeshift offers GPU workloads up to 65 percent cheaper than public clouds, while Candid reduces pre-construction bidding preparation from 12 weeks to one to two weeks.

The deployments show Abu Dhabi-linked capital targeting operating companies across the AI stack rather than treating the sector as a single infrastructure theme. The fund said the selected companies are led by experienced alumni from DeepMind, Google X, Meta and Stanford, reinforcing the emirate’s bid to connect global technical founders with Gulf commercial and capital networks.

Zawya Read original source

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Enterprise AI

AppliedAI Wins Mubadala Backing To Scale Regulated Workflows

AppliedAI, the Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence startup building AI-native workflow systems for regulated industries, has completed a pre-Series B round led by Mubadala Investment Company’s MENA Venture Capital Fund and Arbor Ventures. The investment will support the global scale-up of Opus, its enterprise AI platform for mission-critical operations.

The company said Opus is designed for sectors including healthcare, insurance, banking, energy and government, combining agentic AI with human oversight, auditability and security. AppliedAI has more than 350 employees across the UAE, the United States, Europe and Asia, and works with Fortune 500 companies, governments and institutional organisations.

Zawya Read original source
Strategic Platforms

AIREV And Qualcomm Advance Abu Dhabi Built Autonomous AI

AIREV, the Abu Dhabi creator of the OnDemand autonomous AI platform, has entered a strategic agreement with Qualcomm Technologies to integrate OnDemand with Qualcomm Dragonwing products, including the Qualcomm Dragonwing AI On-Prem Appliance. The company said the collaboration is intended to help enterprises and governments deploy sovereign AI where their data resides.

AIREV said OnDemand is a no-code and low-code operating system for building, deploying and managing autonomous AI agents, with more than four million users worldwide. H.E. Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, UAE Minister of Foreign Trade and Chairman of AIREV, said the agreement shows the UAE creating and exporting technology services.

Zawya Read original source
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Further Dispatches
Healthcare Adoption

startAD Publishes AI Playbooks For UAE Health Organisations

startAD, the Abu Dhabi-based startup accelerator powered by Tamkeen and anchored at NYU Abu Dhabi, has launched an AI Adoption Barometer and implementation playbooks supported by Google.org. The barometer draws on insights from 52 UAE organisations and found that 81 percent of healthcare organisations are defining AI use cases, while 42 percent still lack a dedicated AI budget.

The AI for Good programme has engaged five organisations through 13 AI readiness workshops, delivered a 43 percent overall increase in AI readiness and mobilised close to 200 university students and solution builders across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the wider MENA region. startAD said the new tools are intended to help organisations move from experimentation to implementation.

Zawya Read original source
RegTech Funding

Tax Star Raises Seed Capital For UAE E-Invoicing Compliance

UAE-based Tax Star has raised $1.75 million in a seed round primarily backed by angel investors to expand go-to-market activity, develop its AI-powered corporate tax and compliance platform and help businesses prepare for the UAE’s e-invoicing requirements. The company is a pre-approved Accredited Service Provider for the coming e-invoicing system.

Tax Star said businesses in the UAE with annual revenue of AED 50 million or more face an Accredited Service Provider appointment deadline of October 30, 2026, before the first mandatory implementation phase in January 2027. The company said its participation in Plug and Play and Dubai Founders HQ helped prepare it for the investment round and future expansion plans.

Wamda Read original source
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