Riyadh - Sharikat Mubasher: ScienceWerx, a US-based non-profit organization designed to accelerate the commercialization of technologies, successfully launched its Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Chapter headquarters in Riyadh, with a $100 million pre-seed fund.
The EverGreen fund aims to transform regional IP commercialization in MENA and enhance the region’s research capabilities, focusing on high-growth sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI), healthtech, and deep tech, the company announced in a statement.
Khalid Saqr, Member of the Board of Advisors and Chairperson of the MENA Chapter at ScienceWerx, said: “Saudi Arabia’s innovation ecosystem holds immense value, yet much of it remains untapped in labs. The EverGreen fund will provide the support and infrastructure to propel these innovations to market.”
Meanwhile, Patrick Haley, Co-founder and Chairman of ScienceWerx, stated that the new fund creates an ecosystem, bridging MENA’s $43 billion IP gap through partnerships, tech transfer offices, and incubation resources that speed up ambitious projects.
On his part, Bassem Kadry, Co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at ScienceWerx, noted: “Saudi Arabia has the resources to lead MENA’s knowledge economy, but critical infrastructure is needed. EverGreen brings that missing piece.”
ScienceWerx has created an ecosystem to address the many issues of bringing products to market, including access to capital, technology transfer offices, groups of industry-trained professionals, the vast incubator system, and facilities explicitly designed with commercialization in mind.