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Saudi Arabia launches largest startup district in Middle East

Once a parking space, area underwent drastic transformation and today has 24 meeting rooms, event space that can accommodate over 1,000, and workshop areas

Published: Wed 20 Sep 2023, 4:09 PM

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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Monday officially launched The Garage, the largest startup district in the Middle East located within the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in the capital city of Riyadh, reported local media.

The Garage is a hub for startups spread across 28,000 square metres. Once a parking space, the area underwent drastic transformation and today has 24 state-of-the-art meeting rooms, an expansive event space that can accommodate over 1,000 people, and workshop areas.

At present, the facility hosts more than 300 startup companies and offers a range of programs. These include ‘ACCESS’, ‘The Garage Plus’, The Garage Incubator’, GAIA Startup Accelerator’, ‘MVP Lab’, ‘Antler’, and ‘MVP Lab’.

The Garage has graduated over 230 startups in 10 programme cycles and nurtured 450 startup founders from over 50 countries. The facility has helped startups achieve several milestones and generate revenues of more than SR24.5 million (approximately $6.5 million). The startups at The Garage also bagged investments exceeding SR215 million (approximately $57.3 million) and got crucial lessons through training programmes.

The Garage hosted over 40 events that witnessed the participation of 150 local and international startups. The events were attended by over 3,500 people including industry experts, investors, partners, and forward-thinking entrepreneurs.

The Garage was first showcased at the first LEAP conference in 2022 and has now established itself as the primary hub for startups and an incubator for Saudi and international ventures. The project was developed in collaboration with King Abdulaziz University for Sciences and Technology, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, and the Saudi Federation for Cyber Security and Programming. It was inspired by the garage spaces that were the birthplace of tech giants like Google, Apple, and Amazon, among others.

The facility’s doors have now been opened to founders who are willing to join the community and benefit from an ecosystem of partners and innovators.

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