LEAP conference in Riyadh notches up $13.4 bn in investment and launch deals this year

Among the most prominent announcements this year was the investment plans by Amazon Web Services.

Among the most notable launches at the conference, which was concluded on Thursday, were an announcement of the National Development Fund in cooperation with the Social Development Bank and the launch of two venture investment funds in the gaming and e-sports sector, with a total value of $120 million between the Social Development Bank and two private sector companies – Mirak Financial and Impact Financial (Impact46).

The National Information Technology Development Program (NTDP) launched five initiatives supporting digital entrepreneurship.

This year’s conference, which saw the highest attendance for such a global event, also saw seven other announcements to launch investment funds and financing rounds for technology startups worth more than $888 million.

Oasis announced the launch of its second fund with a total of $100 million to empower company founders in their initial stages of growth in the East. The Middle East, while Blog & Play announced the launch of its first fund in the region to invest in emerging technology companies in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East and North Africa region, with a value of $50 million.
The Leap 24 conference, organized by the Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones, and Tahaluf Company, is billed as the largest global technical event in the region in terms of turnout.

In the closing speech, Faisal Al-Khamisi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones,said: “Officially, LEAP has become the most attended technical conference in the world, with the attendance of 215,000 visitors.”

He said the large participant turnout had a clear impact in increasing the occupancy rate of hotels in Riyadh to 99 percent.