Lubna Olayan, Saudi Billionaire Supporting Female-led Startups through her Investment Firm

By: WE Staff | Saturday, 22 February 2025

• Billionaire Lubna Olayan’s investment firm is betting big on female-led businesses
• The firm Dara Holdings took the initiative to bridge the gender financing gap
• It has investment in an AI startup called qeen.ai

Billionaire Lubna Olayan, one of the richest women of Saudi Arabia, has been running an investment firm entitled as Dara Holdings. Currently, the firm is betting big on the businesses that are led by females with an intent towards bridging the gender financing gap in male-dominated region.

Lubna’s family office has made a series of investment since the startups based in United Arab Emirates were being founded by females in the mid-2024. It took part in a $10 million seed funding round, disclosed in the month of February 2025 for qeen.ai which is a Dubai-based artificial intelligence startup, co-founded by former Google executive Dina Alsamhan. This particular initiative followed the initial pre-seed investment of the organisation in a round that took place in June last year, raising $2.2 million.

The former head of Google Saudi Arabia Alsamhan said in a linkedin post mentioning his happiness regarding the latest fundraising of qeen.ai, “Grateful and proud.” This fundraising is MENA’s (Middle East and North Africa) of the biggest-ever seed rounds.

The organisation participated in a $5.5 million capital raise for an Abu Dhabi-based drug delivery platform BioSapien in the month of December. The platform was founded by physician Khatija Ali. Tim Draper, the Silicon Valley investor also featured the platform on Meet the Drapers, the startup competition web series.

“If an investment ticks the boxes, and it supports women in the region, that for us is a big additional plus. It’s a big focus. We are very keen on creating an investment climate that focuses on R&D and entrepreneurship. We want to create these opportunities in the region,” said Walid Haram, the Chief Investment Officer at Dara in a statement.