Hassan Awada

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has received a commercial license to operate in Abu Dhabi.

BlackRock has been active in the region working with sovereign wealth funds, wealth managers and investment holdings.

BlackRock previously partnered with Alterra, a UAE based $30 billion climate fund. Blackrock, along with Microsoft and MGX (a Mubadala-related investment vehicle), announced the launch of a $100 billion fund to invest in AI infrastructure.

This move demonstrates the New York-based firm’s growing ties and commitment to the region, which will have a significant positive impact, given its over $11.5 trillion in assets under management.

#abudhabi #privateequity #investmentbanking #markets #finance

Here is a mapping of Andreessen Horowitz 206 investments in fintech across payments, blockchain, banking, and other sub-sectors.

Despite the FinTech industry taking a hit in 2022, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) remained active in the space across various sub-sectors, deal stages and geographies.

💳 Payments:
28% of a16z’s FinTech investments went to the payments category.

Top investments include:
SpotOn ($300m): cloud-based payment platform for restaurants and retailers
Jeeves ($180m): corporate cards and business expense management tools
Tally ($80m): automates repayment of consumers’ credit cards

🔗 Blockchain:
22% of a16z’s FinTech investments went to blockchain companies. However most of these deals closed in the first half of 2022.

Top investments include:
Matter Labs ($200m): building an Eth rollup layer 2 network with lower fees and higher speed. 
Lightspark ($175m): building a Bitcoin payments tool
NEAR Protocol ($150M): developing a platform for blockchain-based dApps

💸 Digital lending
12% of a16z’s fintech investments went to digital lending.

Top investments include:
Point ($115M): allows homeowners to borrow against the future value of their property.
Valon ($60M): residential mortgage loan servicing through a cloud-native platform.
Vesta ($30M): mortgage origination and underwriting

Other sub-sectors which a16z invested in:
🏛 Banking - 10%
📜 Insurance - 8%
🏢 Real estate - 6%
💲 Payroll & benefits - 6% 
💰 Wealth Tech - 6%
💰 Capital Markets - 2%

Source: CB Insights

#blockchain #crypto #a16z #venturecapital #fundraising

Mubadala and The Carlyle Group’s AlpInvest Partners establish new financing partnership.

The strategic partnership with one of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth funds will provide portfolio senior fund financing to private equity funds, also known as net asset value (NAV) financing.

This innovative financing solution, NAV financing, has seen substantial growth as private equity funds face challenges exiting portfolio companies, providing immediate liquidity.

The latest partnership demonstrates Mubadala's continuously evolving credit investment strategy that broadens and diversifies its focus, which includes partnerships and backing of global private credit asset managers.

Mubadala has previously backed Apollo’s latest private credit fund in the US and extended a multi-billion-dollar partnership.

Additionally, Mubadala and Goldman Sachs launched a $1 billion Asia-focused fund. Mubadala has also committed $1 billion to Blue Owl’s capital technology lending solution strategy and partnered with Ares on a $1 billion private credit real estate fund.

#markets #finance #investing #fundraising #banking

Saudi Arabia’s aramco staggering net income is more than some of the largest US tech companies, combined.

In 2023, Aramco generated a net income of $121 billion, which exceeds the combined 2023 profits of Amazon ($30 billion), Meta ($39 billion), NVIDIA ($30 billion), and Tesla ($15 billion).

Aramco is the world's largest oil company and the sixth-largest company globally by market cap ($1.74 trillion).

Aramco’s revenues have significantly contributed to funding numerous projects. Nevertheless, the Kingdom has embarked on an economic diversification and growth journey driven by Vision 2030.

Since the launch of Vision 2030, the Kingdom has made remarkable progress in expanding its non-oil economy by focusing on economic diversification, decarbonisation, and digitalisation across key sectors.

#saudiarabia #investing #finance #markets #innovation