Advancing the Next Wave of AI™
Advancing the Next Wave of AI™
Nexan Ventures is an AI-native venture firm anchored in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, backing pre-seed AI founders with a substantive regional nexus, and advising the corporations, governments, and ecosystem builders shaping the Middle East's AI transition.
The next wave of AI will be defined less by the labs that build the models than by where those models meet capital, customers, and the will to deploy at scale. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have all three: declared national AI strategies, sovereign capital committed at scale, and government and enterprise buyers committing real budgets. Yet the regional ecosystem has two structural gaps. Pre-seed AI founders struggle to raise in a market still tilted toward later stages, and large organisations struggle to move from AI pilots to production impact. Those two gaps are where Nexan is designed to operate.
AI has also crossed from research into deployment, and value is moving to the applications, workflows, and agents that act. Tiny teams, AI-native from day one, can now reach escape velocity on workloads that would have required a Series B a decade ago. The window to back the next generation of AI companies is open now, and shorter than it looks.
Nexan is the combination most regional funds do not offer and most advisory firms cannot deliver: venture and advisory, under one roof, AI-native by design. The fund sharpens the advisory practice with live exposure to the frontier; the advisory practice sharpens the fund with trusted relationships inside the institutions that shape regional demand.
And we run the firm the way we believe tomorrow's firms will run: AI platforms and custom workflows across sourcing, diligence, portfolio support, advisory delivery, content, and operations, with humans in the loop at every decision point. AI as the operating model, designed in from day one.
Investing in key priority areas in AI
Nexan concentrates its capital on three priority AI areas (AI-Native, Agentic AI, and Sovereign AI) and deploys through two vehicles: a focused pre-seed fund for founders anchored in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and an opportunistic SPV vehicle for exceptional AI opportunities surfaced through the Nexan Network.
AI-Native
The biggest value will be created at the application layer. AI-native startups rethink entire workflows from first principles, creating products that could not exist without AI. Leaner, faster, and structurally more scalable.
Agentic AI
AI systems that reason, plan, and act autonomously. Agentic AI goes beyond prompts and predictions, executing multi-step tasks, making decisions within guardrails, and reshaping enterprise operations and knowledge work.
Sovereign AI
Nations are building their own AI capabilities for strategic autonomy, and government support is the ultimate AI catalyst in the Gulf. A scale of ambition that reshapes what founders can credibly build here.
Nexan Ventures Fund
Pre-seed AI fund backing founders with a substantive nexus to Saudi Arabia or the UAE. AI-Native, Agentic AI, and Sovereign AI focus.
Nexan Ventures Select
Single-SPV-per-deal vehicle for AI companies sourced through the Nexan Network. No geographic or stage restriction.
What portfolio founders get beyond the cheque
Hands-on advisory
Included in the cheque: product and go-to-market sprints, business-model and pricing design, fundraising strategy, pitch and narrative work, governance, and early hiring.
Deep access to the Nexan Network
Vetted operators and domain specialists deployed on demand, across AI engineering, regulated industries, government affairs, and regional go-to-market.
Active commercial introductions
To enterprise customers, commercial and distribution partners, regulators, and government entities across KSA, the UAE, and the Nexan global reach.
The adoption layer of Nexan's thesis.
Nexan advises on AI strategy, adoption, and venture building, working with corporations, governments, and ecosystem builders across the Middle East.
Engagements span retainer, success-fee, fractional, and project-based models. The advisory practice is the adoption layer of Nexan's thesis: it makes the fund sharper, and it puts capital alongside the institutions whose decisions shape the regional AI economy.
Start an advisory conversation →Full-stack AI venture capabilities.
Computer scientist, entrepreneur, consultant, senior executive, and investor: thirty years of accumulated capability across AI, strategy, and new ventures in complex markets. Co-founded an AI startup in San Francisco (2000), spent four years at McKinsey leading complex solutions projects, led strategy at C-suite level across LG and Philips in the Middle East and Africa, built a healthcare consulting practice inside a multinational, and advised on national AI programmes in Saudi Arabia. Seventeen years on the ground in the Gulf.
Inside Nexan, Ugo wears three hats simultaneously: Fund General Partner (GP), Advisory Principal, and AI-Native firm builder. Each reinforces the others.
Nexan operates with a curated bench of operators, domain specialists, and senior leaders who join individual engagements on demand. The network spans AI engineering, regulated industries, government affairs, regional go-to-market, and corporate transformation. Deliberately small, deliberately senior, deliberately active.
Advisers are vetted, engaged on specific mandates, and compensated through the value they help create.
Decile Group
administration
Nexan Signal.
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Two-day showcase of frontier AI products, models and deployments. Brings together vendors, applied AI teams and government buyers across the Gulf.
The flagship Saudi tech and AI gathering. One of the world's largest tech conferences by attendance, with deep AI, sovereign-tech, fintech and infrastructure tracks.
The world's largest gathering of startups and investors. Pre-seed, growth, AI and emerging-market tracks across multiple stages and pavilions.
The Middle East's largest tech and AI exhibition. Convenes vendors, governments, hyperscalers and enterprise buyers across the Gulf and beyond.
Premier capital-markets and venture event in the UAE. Convenes sovereign wealth funds, family offices, asset managers and the regional venture ecosystem.
AI research and applications conference. Brings together researchers, applied teams and labs working at the frontier of reasoning systems.
Doha edition of Web Summit, the world's largest tech conference. Brings together founders, investors and policymakers across AI, fintech and the wider tech stack.
Successor to Arab Health, the largest healthcare and health-tech gathering in the region. Convenes hospitals, regulators, ministries and vendors from across MENA.
Premier capital-markets and venture event in the UAE. Convenes sovereign wealth funds, family offices, asset managers and the regional venture ecosystem.
Saudi Arabia's flagship healthcare exhibition and conference. Convenes ministries, hospitals, payers and health-tech vendors from across the Gulf and globally.
The world's largest gathering of startups and investors. Pre-seed, growth, AI and emerging-market tracks across multiple stages and pavilions.
Inaugural Riyadh edition of Money 20/20. Region's largest fintech gathering bringing together banks, regulators, fintechs and investors across the MENA payments stack.
Riyadh-hosted region-wide AI policy and applications summit. Senior government, enterprise and ecosystem participants discussing AI strategy and deployment at scale.
Industry gathering for private capital and alternative finance across MENA. Convenes private equity, venture, private credit and family offices active in the region.
Saudi-focused startup pitch competition and ecosystem festival. Showcases early-stage Saudi founders and connects them with regional investors and corporates.
National-scale showcase of Saudi startups, investors and government enablers. Spans Vision 2030 sectors with a strong tech and digital-economy focus.
Founder and operator gathering bringing together regional builders, executives and investors. Focused on practical operating know-how, scaling and team-building.
Region's leading fintech gathering. Convenes banks, regulators, fintechs and investors across digital assets, payments, AI and embedded finance.
UAE's flagship health-policy and innovation gathering. Hosts ministers, hospital systems, payers and health-tech innovators from the region and globally.
Computer-vision and applied-AI research conference. Convenes academics, applied teams and labs working at the intersection of vision, perception and reasoning.
UAE-led investment platform convening sovereign capital, family offices and global investors. Sector tracks across AI, fintech, climate, healthcare and venture.
The flagship Saudi tech and AI gathering. One of the world's largest tech conferences by attendance, with deep AI, sovereign-tech, fintech and infrastructure tracks.
Regional creator, tech and consumer-internet conference. Spans content, gaming, social, music, AI and emerging consumer formats across MENA.
Middle East Venture Capital Association's flagship gathering of regional GPs and LPs. Industry policy, fundraising trends and ecosystem coordination across MENA.
First edition of Nexan's annual report on the regional AI landscape: structured, proprietary, long-form. Subscribe to Pulse to receive it on publication.
Nexan invests in ruya.ai
Frontier AI for sovereign intelligence: forensic-grade tools for governments, law enforcement and qualified enterprises.
With power comes responsibility.
Venture capital and artificial intelligence are among the most powerful forces for change today. Nexan operates on two anchored commitments: an industry-wide ethical code for venture capitalists, and a portfolio-level commitment to ethical AI.
Developed by the Founder Institute and VC Lab, the Mensarius Oath is an ethical code of conduct for venture capitalists. Nexan Ventures is a proud signatory.
As a steward of capital and a builder of ventures, I pledge to act with integrity, transparency, and accountability in all my dealings. I will prioritise the long-term interests of founders, investors, and the broader ecosystem over short-term gain. I will invest with conviction but also with conscience, recognising that the companies we build today will shape the society of tomorrow.
I will be honest in my assessments, fair in my terms, and respectful of the trust placed in me. I will champion diversity of thought, background, and perspective. I will hold myself to the highest ethical standards and expect the same of those I work with.
Our commitments on Ethical AI
- Invest only in AI that is designed to benefit humanity and does not cause deliberate harm.
- Require transparency and explainability in the AI systems our portfolio companies build.
- Champion data privacy, security, and responsible data governance across our portfolio.
- Support diversity and inclusion in founding teams, hiring, and AI development.
- Advocate for regulatory frameworks that balance innovation with accountability.
- Maintain full transparency with our LPs on investment decisions, conflicts, and performance.
- Contribute to industry standards and open dialogue on ethical AI development.
Contact Nexan Ventures.
Whether you are a founder building a startup, an investor interested to know more about us, an organisation seeking advisory services, a senior expert who wants to join the Nexan Network, or a media organisation interested in our story, let's start the conversation.
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