Deep Tech · Corporate VC

Wa'ed Ventures

Aramco's $500M CVC. One quantum bet, executed end to end: Pasqal Series B 2023, re-up in the March 2026 pre-listing round, 200-qubit machine running in Aramco's Dhahran data center since November 2025.

Active Dhahran, Saudi ArabiaFounded 2013

Investment thesis

Wa'ed Ventures is the $500M corporate venture fund of Saudi Aramco (legal entity: Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship Ventures LLC), headquartered in Dhahran Techno Valley. Aramco created the Wa'ed entrepreneurship center in 2011, launched the $200M VC fund in 2013, raised the ticket ceiling to $20M in 2021, scaled the fund to $500M in 2022 and rebranded as Wa'ed Ventures in 2023. Approximately $270M deployed across 75+ startups; checks up to $20M from seed to growth.

Its quantum play is a single, deep bet: Pasqal. Wa'ed entered Pasqal's €100M Series B in January 2023 (Temasek lead) and re-upped in March 2026 in Pasqal's pre-listing financing of at least €340M, named in the press release as Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship Ventures among continuing investors.

The investment is the front end of a full localization pipeline: Aramco signed a deployment agreement with Pasqal in May 2024, installed a 200-qubit neutral-atom machine at its Dhahran data center in November 2025 (Saudi Arabia's first quantum computer), and launched the Middle East's first commercial QCaaS platform on it in May 2026.

The condition attached to Wa'ed's global checks, localizing R&D and operations in the Kingdom, is not boilerplate: Pasqal executed it. In October 2024 Wa'ed also earmarked $100M for early-stage AI.

Anti-thesis

The patterns that trigger a fast no with this fund.

  1. Single quantum name: the entire quantum exposure is Pasqal. No second hardware bet, no PQC, no quantum software line in the official portfolio as of February 2026
  2. Localization is the price of the check: global deals carry a requirement to localize key operations and R&D in Saudi Arabia. If your roadmap cannot absorb a Saudi entity, a local team and an Aramco use case, this check is not for you
  3. Follower on frontier hardware: in quantum, Wa'ed has never led; Temasek led the 2023 Series B. Its lead rounds are Saudi-market plays (Rewaa SAR 100M Series A) or contech (Mighty Buildings)
  4. Strategy serves the parent: deal selection tracks Aramco's digitalization agenda (energy, materials, industrial). A quantum startup with no plausible Aramco workload will struggle to clear the thesis
  5. Single-LP exposure: 100% Aramco capital under the National Champions program; mandate, pace and ticket ceiling can be reset by the parent (as happened in 2021 and 2022)

Notable quantum portfolio

Full portfolio
Pasqal

Frequent co-investors