1001 AI, a new startup founded by Bilal Abu-Ghazaleh, has raised 9 million in seed funding to build AI infrastructure for high-stakes industries across the Middle East and North Africa. The round was led by CIV, General Catalyst, and Lux Capital, with participation from investors such as Chris R, Amjad Masad Replit, Amira Sajwani DAMAC, Khalid Bin Bader Al Saud RAED Ventures, and Hisham Al-Falih Lean Technologies.
Based between London and Dubai, Abu-Ghazaleh brings deep experience from Silicon Valley firms, including Scale AI, where he helped design AI systems for government and enterprise clients. His goal now is to fix inefficiencies in physical industries like airports, ports, and oil operations a problem he estimates costs the Gulf over 10 billion every year.
Just looking at the top three or four industries like airports, ports, construction, and oil and gas, we see more than 10 billion in inefficiencies across the Gulf alone, Abu-Ghazaleh said.
