Abu Dhabi's Presight, Shorooq back US robotics startup in $100m round

Summary

• Presight and Shorooq joined a $100 million Series A for US robot maker Maven Robotics.
• The two run a joint $100 million AI fund launched in September 2025.
• Abu Dhabi capital is moving from software AI into machines that run physical operations.

The latest

Two Abu Dhabi investors have taken positions in Maven Robotics, a US industrial robot developer, as part of a $100 million Series A round. Venture firm Shorooq and Abu Dhabi-listed AI company Presight announced the investment in a joint statement, according to AGBI. Neither disclosed the size of its individual commitment.

Details

• The investors: Presight is an Abu Dhabi-listed artificial intelligence company majority-owned by G42, while Shorooq is a regional venture capital firm, AGBI reported. The two issued a joint statement on the Maven investment but withheld the value of their respective stakes in the round.
• The fund behind it: Presight chief executive Thomas Pramotedham said the Presight-Shorooq Fund I aims to give companies such as Maven the capital to scale. The vehicle was launched in September 2025 with a target of investing $100 million across what the partners describe as the next generation of AI companies.
• The target company: Maven Robotics was founded in 2024 and designs, builds and deploys intelligent robots for logistics and manufacturing, according to the joint statement. The round values no figure publicly for the stake taken by the Abu Dhabi pair.
• Performance claims: The company claims its robots already operate up to 16 hours a day at customer sites with reliability above 99 percent, AGBI reported. The claim is Maven's own; no independent operating data was released alongside the funding announcement.
• Use of proceeds: The new capital will fund the build-out of Maven's third-generation robot fleet and the design of the following generation, the statement said. No deployment timeline or customer count was attached to the plan.
• The thesis: Shorooq partner Bilal Baloch said the first wave of AI reshaped how people work with information, and argued the next wave will reshape how the physical economy runs, calling it "a far larger prize."
• Market reaction: Presight shares closed 0.3 percent higher at AED3.79 on Tuesday, AGBI reported, leaving the stock up more than 15 percent so far this year.
• The wider push: Abu Dhabi Investment Council, wholly owned by Mubadala, invested this week in a multi-billion-dollar round for Nscale, a London-based AI data centre operator, according to AGBI. In January, Mubadala group chief executive Khaldoon Al Mubarak said the $330 billion wealth fund was targeting AI and robotics opportunities.

Background

Presight sits inside the G42 group, Abu Dhabi's main artificial intelligence vehicle. Its listing on the local market gives the emirate a publicly traded instrument for AI exposure, alongside sovereign investors such as Mubadala that deploy capital privately and at far larger scale.

Between the lines

The pattern across the week points one way: Abu Dhabi Investment Council into data centres, Presight and Shorooq into factory robots. Al Mubarak's January framing of AI and robotics as targets now has transactions behind it. The Shorooq thesis that the physical economy is the larger prize explains why a $100 million fund launched in 2025 is writing cheques into a company founded only in 2024.

What's next

Watch whether the Presight-Shorooq Fund I discloses further deals against its $100 million target, when Maven's third-generation fleet reaches customer sites, and whether Presight shares hold their 15 percent year-to-date gain.

Source: AGBI (Arabian Gulf Business Insight)