Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp has decided to invest $125 million into a Saudi Arabian company, marking its first foray into the Gulf nation. The investment, which is for a customer communication platform called Unifonic, was co-led with Sanabil, which is wholly owned by the Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund.
Unifonic co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Ahmed Hamdan stated in an interview that the proceeds of the investment are expected to be put towards the company’s growing operations in the Middle East, as well as tapping into new territories across Africa and Asia. Further acquisitions in such regions will also be considered in order to accelerate such expansion efforts.
The deal, which was funded through SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, was the next large-scale investment following July’s $415 million fundraising effort by Dubai-based cloud kitchen startup Kitopi. As a result of the investment, the company’s valuation exceeded $1 billion.
Hamdan expressed much gratitude for his company’s ability to attract such a lucrative investment, as well as the fact that this deal is also an investment in Saudi Arabia as a whole.
“Being able to attract one of the top international funds to invest in Saudi Arabia is a big milestone that will encourage more foreign direct investment to come into the digital and technology space,” Hamdan remarked.
