Seed Fund
KAUST’s Seed Fund Program has a mission to promote the economic competitiveness of Saudi Arabia - by investing into technological innovations that lead to the establishment of enterprises. Our seed funding aims to stimulate new business formation, while leveraging on our world-class infrastructure and a wealth of in-house expertise.
We can also co-invest with other types of funding vehicles to complement the activities of other privately and publicly funded incubators and technology transfer centers.
Venture into Capital
Our Business Accelerator
Who Should Apply
Application, Selection and Award
Entrepreneurial Platform
Venture into Capital
The Seed Fund will award up to $250,000 per application, along with critical support services and facilities, to help budding entrepreneurs start their new companies.
Our seed fund aims to reduce the barriers experienced by other early-stage funds to invest. Our seed funding does not compete with venture capital, but strives to act in a synergistic manner to facilitate very-early and early stage developments towards commercial uptake.
Our seed funding ensures that strong opportunities are captured, even when in very-early stage and perhaps when too risky for other early-stage funds, to ensure:
- the creation of employment opportunities in Saudi Arabia
- a positive contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) – over and above traditional energy-related output
- the nurturing of new entrepreneurs
- the development of new technologies and patents into commercially viable products and services
Our Business Accelerator
Applicants are eligible for up to $ 50,000 pre proof-of-concept funding (POC) and up to $250,000 seed funding. Seed funding can take the form of a grant, loan or equity in your new business venture.
We also provide a host of administrative support services that include accounting, IP, legal, Human Resources, purchasing, visa and payroll processing. Moreover, we offer deeply discounted rates for office and laboratory space in our Innovation Cluster. Our start-ups have access to KAUST’s Research Centers and Core Lab facilities, including:
- Nanofabrication, Imaging & Characterization
- Biosciences & Bioengineering
- Analytical Chemistry & Coastal & Marine
- SHAHEEN – Supercomputing & Networking
- CORNEA – Advanced Computation & Visualization
Who should apply?
- Seed funding is awarded for entrepreneurial ideas or start-up’s that are otherwise associated with incubators should your funding case or proposal meet KAUST’s funding criteria.
- The seed fund invites all who are keen to exploit start-up opportunities at KAUST- we welcome international entrepreneurs, faculty, students and researchers alike.
- To fill the funding gap at seed stage, KAUST awards two types of funding:
- Pre-POC
- Seed Fund
- Our pre proof-of-concept (POC) fund awards $25,000 to $50,000 and is aimed at assisting seed fund applicants to help refine or enhance their funding case.
- Pre-POC funding is generally awarded to seed fund applicants to use towards assessing market potential, viability of proposed technologies, funding requirements, resource needs, facilities, time scales and risk.
- The pre-POC fund can also be utilized towards performing technology audits and patent landscaping or filing.
Seed Fund
Our Seed Fund awards up to $ 250,000 to successful applicants. The cash injection into your start-up can easily be doubled by additional in-kind contributions offered through our Entrepreneurial Platform. These include entrepreneurship courses, mentorship, administrative support services, as well as office and lab space. Even our Core Lab services are deeply discounted to seeded entities and start-up’s.
Application, Selection and Award
Registration, Pre-qualification and Proposal are completed online.
Application is done online and follows 3 easy steps:
- Registration (external applicants only)
- Pre-qualification
- Application
Registration
- Our students, staff, faculty and researchers are not required to register online. As an external applicant, you will only register once with KAUST, regardless of the nature of your interaction with KAUST. Registration will result in receiving a username and password for easy access to your application or to automatically receiving news and invitations to our Business Plan Competitions or Research Grant Programs.
- External Applications for Seed Funding will open in April 2010.
- Internal applications need not register.
Pre-qualification
Click here to submit your details for Seed Fund Pre-qualification.
Pre-qualification is the next step of your seed fund application and help both applicant and KAUST make a quick assessment of the applicant’s readiness to apply for funding.
High-level screening criteria to assess seed fund applications include:
- Maturity of technology or research
- Strategic fit of proposal with KAUST’s mission
- Applicant’s business case and business model
- Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer
- Entrepreneurial skills and requirements
- Economic impact on Saudi Arabia
The Proposal
The Proposal is the last step of your online seed fund application and assumes that the proof-of- concept stage of your development has been completed.
All proposals are submitted online – the application process, which became active on February 1, 2010, entails furnishing details about the following aspects of your business case:
- Entrepreneurial skills and experience
- Management team
- Business case
- Business model
- Competitor and market analysis
- Partners and collaborators
While we have great impetus for developing entrepreneurs at KAUST and bringing research into our community, we do accept applications from Saudi-based students, researchers or entrepreneurs.
Award
Our panel of judges assesses each funding case individually. The Seed Fund Assessment Committee convenes once a quarter to award seed funding to our applicants. Applicants are notified within one working week of the committee’s final decision.
Our process of seed funding award is fair, equitable and transparent. We endeavor to provide all applicants with feedback on their applications.
Entrepreneurial Platform
After successful award, KAUST offers you extensive business accelerator services to include all you need to set up and launch your new venture:
- Office space
- Online procurement
- Visa processing
- Legal and IP support
- Accounting and budgeting
- Lab space
- Mentoring and coaching
- Accommodation
- Industry Collaboration
KAUST supports academic and private sector alliances through its technology transfer office, industry collaboration program, business incubator, entrepreneurship program and venture capital network. The KAUST community also taps into the tenants of the Innovation Cluster and Research Park in the fields of science and engineering.
Send us an email at seedfund@kaust.edu.sa.