Khaled bin Alwaleed Expands Commitment To Climate Technology With Two New Investments The founder and CEO of KBW Ventures sees "venture-backed green tech as the way forward."
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KBW Ventures founder and CEO Khaled bin Alwaleed has invested in two MENA-based climate technology (climatetech) startups, Egypt-based renewable energy startup NoorNation, and KSA-based restaurant supply management platform Kaso.
Founded in 2020 by Ragy Ramadan, NoorNation provides technology-enabled decentralized energy and water infrastructure solutions to the off-grid sector across Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa.
On the other hand, Kaso, founded in 2021 by Manar AlKassar and Ahmed Soliman, is a business to business (B2B) platform that streamlines vendor logistics in the F&B sector through digitizing and automating procurement between restaurants and food suppliers.
Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed with Kaso co-founder Manar AlKassar. Source: KBW Ventures
According to Prince Khaled, Kaso had been on the investor's radar for some time now, even before the investment was initiated.
"We want to grow our allocation into B2B software as a service (SaaS)," he said. "Kaso not only checks the boxes on return parameters; we also like to see visibility of 10x return for early-stage opportunities."
Over the years, KBW Ventures has invested in a number of sustainability sectors, from food security and alternative proteins to carbon capture and agritech. Prince Khaled has indicated that more investment announcements—specifically in the technology markets—would be made soon.
