Mubadala Capital dealmaker to launch his own venture fund

Mubadala Capital’s top start-up investor is leaving to launch his own venture fund, targeting the next wave of founders seeking to replicate the success of US giants such as OpenAI, SpaceX and Waymo.

Ibrahim Ajami, head of ventures at the private capital arm of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, will leave next year to launch a new group called Noha, according to people familiar with the matter.

The fundraising target for Noha’s first fund will be about $500mn. The new firm would be seeded with a “few hundred million dollars” from Mubadala, and would co-invest with other private capital groups in the United Arab Emirates, the people said. It would initially be staffed by a small team of people who currently work under Ajami in San Francisco, they added.

Ajami’s exit from Mubadala is set to come as the UAE makes a significant push to back top technology groups. The executive has been a key figure in efforts by the UAE to expand its investment and influence in US technology.

The 51-year-old has backed Elon Musk’s rocket maker SpaceX, self-driving vehicle company Waymo and financial technology group Stripe over a two-decade career at the firm.

Noha, which means wisdom in Arabic, will target US companies at an earlier stage of their growth, offering access to capital, customers and computing power from the UAE as a wave of start-ups aim to emulate the enormous growth of AI labs OpenAI and Anthropic, according to the people familiar with the plans.

About 90 per cent of the group’s investment will be focused on the US, with the remainder going to start-ups in the UAE and elsewhere, according to one of the people.

The UAE is deploying its vast sovereign wealth in an effort to position itself as a third power, behind the US and China, in the race to develop AI. The Gulf state is developing vast amounts of AI infrastructure and has invested heavily in OpenAI and Anthropic as it looks to reduce its economic dependence on energy.

US investors have also been strengthening ties to the emirate. US private capital group Apollo Global is buying a minority stake in Mubadala Capital, becoming just the second external shareholder in the group after Silver Rock Financial, the former family office of “junk bond king” Michael Milken.

Mubadala Capital declined to comment.