Think, a Riyadh-based artificial intelligence infrastructure company, has closed an $8 million-plus pre-seed funding round, which the company and its backers describe as the largest AI infrastructure and deep-tech pre-seed round in the MENA region to date. The round was co-led by RAED Ventures and Wa’ed Ventures, with participation from the venture capital arm of Dhahran Techno Valley and strategic angel investors. Proceeds will fund team expansion, manufacturing scale-up, product development, and international growth across the GCC and selected global markets.
Think builds integrated hardware and software infrastructure designed to reduce the cost and complexity of deploying AI at scale. Its platform combines high-density, liquid-cooled multi-GPU compute nodes with a proprietary bare-metal orchestration software layer called ILM, which is engineered to maximize GPU utilization, lower token costs, and reduce the total cost of AI deployment. In production benchmark testing, the platform achieved sustained GPU utilization above 90%, compared with an industry average of 30–50%, and a per-million-token cost the company says is nearly 10 times lower than the average cost of using frontier models from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Notably, the platform runs on existing, widely available GPUs rather than proprietary inference hardware, and the company plans to add support for mixed-vendor and specialist inferencing silicon for both inference and training workloads.
The company was co-founded by Ahmed AlSharif, who held senior roles at Meta, Sony PlayStation Europe, and EA Games, and Ammar Enaya, whose career includes leadership positions at Cisco, HPE Aruba, and Vectra AI. Think is already engaged in proofs of concept, production deployments, and strategic partnerships across Saudi Arabia, including participation in the Kingdom’s AI ecosystem alongside initiatives such as HUMAIN.
The investment thesis behind Think is anchored in a view that the AI industry’s next competitive frontier will be infrastructure efficiency and data sovereignty rather than raw model scale. Enterprises, startups, and government organizations in Saudi Arabia and across the GCC are increasingly seeking AI deployment options that do not require dependence on hyperscale cloud providers — a demand driven by rising GPU costs, data privacy concerns, and national sovereignty objectives. Think’s platform is designed to be deployable across data centers, offices, laboratories, and edge environments, giving customers full control over their compute and data.
RAED Ventures manages over $550 million in assets under management and focuses on seed-to-growth investments across MENA. Wa’ed Ventures is a $500 million institutional venture capital firm wholly owned by Aramco, with a portfolio of more than 100 startups. Dhahran Techno Valley, anchored by King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, is home to more than 15 multinational research centers and 65 deep-tech startups.
KEY QUOTES:
“As the industry moves beyond the race for bigger models and larger data centres, a new age of efficiency is beginning. AI infrastructure today is expensive, inefficient, and increasingly difficult to scale. Think exists to help organisations do more with the compute they already have, offering an alternative to the industry’s current obsession with bigger, faster and more expensive.”
Ahmed AlSharif, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Think
“Our customers want the benefits of AI without the spiralling costs, security concerns, and dependence associated with hyperscale cloud providers. We’re seeing strong demand from enterprises, start-ups and government organisations looking for infrastructure that delivers the performance they need, with an approach that gives them total control and ownership.”
Ammar Enaya, Co-Founder, Think
“The next generation of AI leaders will be defined not only by the models they build, but by the infrastructure that makes AI practical, affordable and sovereign. Think is tackling one of AI’s biggest challenges with technology that improves efficiency while giving organisations greater control over their AI capabilities. We believe the team is building a category-defining company from Saudi Arabia with global potential.”
Wael Nafee, General Partner, RAED Ventures
“Saudi Arabia has a unique opportunity not only to adopt AI, but to build the infrastructure that powers it. Think is resolving one of the industry’s biggest challenges by making AI deployment more efficient, scalable and sovereign, and we’re proud to support its next stage of growth.”
Eng. Anas Algahtani, Chief Executive Officer, Wa’ed Ventures
“Sovereign and efficient AI infrastructure is foundational to every country’s AI ambitions. Think is tackling one of the sector’s most pressing challenges by helping organisations deploy and scale AI while maintaining control over cost, security and data.”
Faizan Baig, Chief Investment Officer, Dhahran Techno Valley
