Saudi Digital Leaders

The program commences with a wide scouting exercise of promising local startups followed by a rigorous vetting process that takes place a few times annually . This results in the selection of the most advanced, promising, highly scalable startups with potential for cross border growth. The selection committee comprises of a joint team from CA PNP. The chosen startups will join a cohort at PNP headquarters for a period of 3 months where they will participate in a program designed to prepare them for an introduction to leading international members. PNP members include top universities, 40 governments, and over 200 top corporations such as Bosch, BNP Paribas, Hitachi, Ericsson, BASF, Siemens, Lufthansa, Dow Chemical, Ford, Mitsubishi among others. The PNP program covers more than 15 verticals including IOT, Fintech, new materials, and health. If any of those members are interested in the startup technology they may acquire, partner with the startup, or buy the product. This will give the Saudi Startup the unique chance to go global and fulfill one of the main pillars of Saudi vision 2030. PNP has been running this program for over 10 years, and has helped hundreds of startups get funded or acquired. PNP startups have raised over $4B, among them Dropbox, Soundhound and Paypal.

Once the entrepreneurs are back in Saudi, SDL program will continue to help solve their most painful problems by lobbying the local authorities to address road blocks in regulation, funding, or operation. They will also be introduced to local and regional venture capitalists and leading corporates. The program is designed to treat the few selected startups as the cream of Saudi startups and will give them all the support they need on the ground to grow and scale their business. On the corporate side, the program will also facilitate the introduction of Saudi corporations to PNP and facilitate memberships that would allow them wide exposure to global innovation, to acquire or develop the latest solutions to address some of their problems. This will position leading Saudi corporates on the cutting edge of technology, once more fulfilling one of the major objectives of Vision 2030.