Riyadh: Saudi Arabia’s portfolio of venture investments includes Tiger Global Management and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, recent updates to its website show.
The firms are among the roughly 50 venture capital and growth funds that Saudi Arabia’s Sanabil Investments, the venture arm of its $620 billion Public Investment Fund, has begun publishing online. It’s rare for limited partners - the investors in VC funds - to make their positions public.
The disclosure began earlier this month with about 40 firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue Management, ICONIQ Capital and KKR, which was first reported by The Information.
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Tiger Global and Founders Fund were added in the following weeks, along with Haun Ventures and Viking Global Investors, based on a historical analysis of the fund’s website. The Sanabil website also now links to Sequoia Capital.
Sanabil isn’t an investor in Sequoia’s US-run venture or growth funds, nor its separately managed affiliates in India and Southeast Asia, according to people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity as the information is private.
Representatives for Founders Fund, Haun Ventures, Tiger Global and Viking declined to comment. Spokespeople for PIF and Sequoia Capital’s China affiliate didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Sanabil doesn’t specify the size or the timing of the investments, only providing links to firms’ websites to “learn more.”
The disclosed ties to blue-chip venture and growth funds come during a difficult time for the industry after years of explosive gains. Tiger Global marked down one of its venture funds, which runs $12.7 billion and began investing in 2021, by 20 per cent as of December, according to a person familiar with the matter.
PIF’s vision is “to be a global investment powerhouse and the world’s most impactful investor, enabling the creation of new sectors and opportunities that will shape the future global economy, while driving the economic transformation of Saudi Arabia,” according to its website.
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, PIF’s governor, spoke briefly before hundreds of attendees to Miami Beach last month for a two-day conference that attracts money to the kingdom as well as those seeking to tap its wealth.
Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz praised Saudi Arabia at the event as a “startup country.” He said he plans to take some of his portfolio companies to visit this month.
