The Weekly Circuit
👋 Good Monday morning in the Middle East!
The head of cybersecurity for the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, leads an international cast of government officials, corporate executives and investors gathering today on the campus of Tel Aviv University for its annual CyberWeek conference. The early summer event will also feature Christopher Lukas, the chief information security officer for Chevron, which co-owns a Mediterranean gas field off the coast of Israel with Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund.
CyberWeek will kick off with addresses by the director of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, Ronen Bar, and chief of the Israel National Cyber Directorate, Gaby Portnoy. Coming from overseas are the acting U.S. national cyber director, Kemba Eneas Walden; Taiwan’s digital affairs minister, Audrey Tang; the head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Sami Khoury; and Interpol’s cybercrime director, Craig Jones.
Also on the roster are the chief information security officer for Microsoft, Bret Arsenault; the NFL’s chief information security officer, Tomás Maldonado; Check Point Software Technologies CEO Gil Shwed; CyberArk Executive Chairman Udi Mokady; and the head of intelligence for Crowdstrike, Adam Myers.
At the Paris Air Show last week, Saudi Arabia emerged with a series of multibillion-dollar aircraft deals and showed off its newest carrier, Riyadh Air. Among the orders placed were 30 Airbus A320neo aircraft by the budget airline Flynas and 30 Boeing jets by its flag carrier Saudia. The kingdom intends to serve as a global logistics hub by doubling its air cargo capacity to 4.5 million tons by 2030, according to a statement by the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation.
Israel Aerospace Industries used the French exposition to unveil its new $1 billion Oron stealth jet. The aircraft is designed primarily for intelligence-gathering, with one-third of its weight taken up by dozens of high-performance computers and eight stations for intelligence officers, according to the state-owned aerospace company. Other products drawing crowds were two missile-defense systems: IAI’s Arrow-3 and Rafael’s new SkySonic system, designed to intercept missiles that fly at several times the speed of sound.
Welcome to The Weekly Circuit, where we cover the Middle East through a business and cultural lens. Read on for the stories, deals and players at the top of the news. Please send comments and story tips to [email protected].
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PITCHING PLASMA
NT-Tao seeks to generate fusion with reactors the size of shipping containers
Creating a miniature version of the sun in a nondescript office building outside Tel Aviv might be the key to providing cheap, waste-free energy for the entire world. NT-Tao, an Israeli startup led by a former submarine commander, is one of some 30 companies racing to generate energy through nuclear fusion. Its founders are trying to develop fusion reactors small enough to fit in a 40-foot shipping container, but powerful enough that each could provide electricity for 1,000 homes, Melanie Lidman reports for The Circuit.
Honda invests: After raising $22 million in February from Japan’s Honda Motor Co. and other investors, NT-Tao is looking to grab a modest chunk of what some predict could become a $40 trillion fusion industry. Leaders in the field include Cambridge, Mass.-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which is backed by billionaire Bill Gates, and Seattle-based Helion Energy, which counts Sam Altman, CEO of artificial intelligence pioneer OpenAI, as an investor.
Abundant and clean: “Fusion energy is really the only abundant source of energy that is clean, and you can get as much as you need,” said CEO Oded Gour-Lavie, who co-founded NT-Tao in 2016 after serving 30 years in the Israeli navy. “There’s nothing coming close to it.” One problem: the technology doesn’t quite exist yet.
Hotter than the sun: When hydrogen gets heated under pressure to around 100 million degrees Celsius, about six times hotter than the sun – even for a fraction of a second – it becomes so hot that the electrons are sheared from the atoms and the nuclei collide with one another. When two nuclei meet and fuse together, an enormous amount of energy is released. Finding a way to capture the energy generated by that fusion could go a long way towards solving the current energy crisis.
COP28 agenda: Fusion will be one of the prominent topics at COP28, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which starts Nov. 30 and will be hosted by the United Arab Emirates. The conference’s president-designate, Sultan Al Jaber, who is also CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, spoke at a climate conference in the UAE last month about the “need to keep pushing for breakthroughs in battery storage, expand nuclear, and invest in new energies like fusion.”
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MOVING MONEY
Airwallex sets sights on Arab Gulf states as it opens first Middle East office in Tel Aviv
Airwallex, a digital payment platform that aims to disrupt the way businesses move money around the world, is building up its new office in Israel and aiming to expand its reach to the Arab Gulf states. Founded in 2015 in Melbourne, Australia, Airwallex opened a branch in Tel Aviv in May, hiring Or Liban, a former Google executive, to run operations and expand in the region, Pranav Sood, general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told The Circuit’s Jonathan Ferziger.
Disposable income: “Across the Middle East, you see young, growing populations – populations that have lots of disposable income and people who are looking to spend online for e-commerce – also to travel and to buy and sell things around the world,” Sood said in an interview from London. “All of those factors mean that the Middle East is a region that we’re very excited about and looking to invest in.”
$50 billion: Airwallex, which processes more than $50 billion in transactions a year, is one of the fastest growing financial technology companies and carries a market value of $5.5 billion. The company raised $902 million from investors that include Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia, MasterCard, Tencent and Lone Pine Capital. Sood was in Israel last week to attend the Calcalist conference on financial innovation, which was co-sponsored by Airwallex. Liban spoke on a panel about the relationship between banks and fintech companies.
Global offices: In Israel, the company’s customers include Papaya Global, which helps businesses manage payroll and payments, and OurCrowd, a Jerusalem-based venture capital investing platform. Airwallex has about 1,300 employees in 20 offices, including San Francisco, London, Amsterdam, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. The company is currently recruiting a staff of about 10 employees for its new office in Tel Aviv and is looking at potential acquisitions in Israel in the field of cybersecurity.
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Circuit Chatter
Carbon Credits: ADNOC is setting up a desk to trade carbon credits as the UAE prepares to host the COP28 climate conference in November.
Leap for Lazard: Abu Dhabi’s ADQ sovereign wealth fund held discussions to acquire New York’s Lazard investment bank and take it private, but the talks eventually fell apart.
Gas Deals: China National Petroleum Corporation signed a 27-year agreement to purchase 4 million tons of liquefied natural gas a year from QatarEnergy.
Cash Cows: Saudi Arabia’s VMS venture studio acquired a minority stake in Egyptian start-up accelerator Cash Cows to invest in startups in the MENA region.
Flying Taxi: Germany’s Volocopter conducted test flights of its prototype air taxi at Saudi Arabia’s Neom for possible use in the $500 billion city of the future.
Tech Offering: ADNOC and Abu Dhabi-owned G42 are in early talks about a possible public offering for their joint venture technology firm AIQ, Reuters reported.
Qatari VC: Rasmal Ventures, the first independent Qatari venture capital firm, began operations at the Qatar Financial Centre, looking to invest in MENA startups.
Sea Battles: UAE defense conglomerate Edge agreed to work with the Brazilian Navy on developing long-range anti-ship missiles.
Hajj Buses: Saudi Arabia said it will test self-driving electric buses in Mecca to transport pilgrims coming from around the world to perform the hajj.
Green Construction: The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority co-chaired a group with the French Development Agency to promote sustainable infrastructure in emerging markets.
Gaming Jobs: Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism said it expects more than 300 jobs to be created in the e-gaming industry, spread across 20 new companies.
Christian Tourism: Evangelical Christians have become some of the most enthusiastic visitors to Saudi Arabia since the Islamic kingdom opened its doors to leisure tourists.
Closing Circuit
Petrochemical Producer: Saudi Aramco signed an $11 billion contract with France’s TotalEnergies to build a new petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia.
Electric Cars: An Abu Dhabi-controlled investment firm agreed to buy a 7% stake in Chinese electric carmaker Nio, paying about $739 million.
Water Network: The Abu Dhabi National Energy Company plans to acquire wastewater processor Sustainable Water Solutions for $463 million.
Racing Cars: Mumtalakat, Bahrain’s state investment fund, agreed to buy a $509 million stake in U.K. racing carmaker McLaren Group from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Ares Management, Sky News reported.
Plastics Offer: ADNOC approached Covestro AG, the German maker of plastics and chemicals, with an $11 billion takeover proposal, Reuters reported.
Metals Acquisition: Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund appears to be the leading bidder to acquire a $2.5 billion stake in Vale SA’s nickel and copper operations, Bloomberg reported.
Going Up: Trade between the UAE and Israel increased 42% to $1.3 billion during the first five months of 2023, compared to the same period last year.
Islamic Fintech: Egypt’s Agel, a Sharia-compliant fintech startup, raised more than $1 million in a pre-seed funding round, led by Plus Venture Capital and Seedstars.
Water Tech: N-Drip, an Israeli developer of new irrigation technologies, raised $44 million in a funding round led by the Granot investment company.
AI Hub: The Dubai International Financial Center will create a $300 million hub for artificial intelligence and Web 3.0 companies, seeking 500 companies to operate there by 2028.
IPO Ahead: Bahrain-based asset manager Investcorp will seek to raise as much as $600 million with the public share sale of an investment vehicle in Abu Dhabi, Reuters reported.
Port Lease: Pakistan agreed to lease its Karachi seaports for 50 years to the UAE’s AD Ports, which will invest $220 million to upgrade the facilities.
Starting Fresh: Saudi Arabia’s Alfanar Global Development said it will invest $2.7 billion to establish five residential communities in the new city of Neom.
On the Circuit
Talal Al Zain, the former CEO of Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, was named chief investment officer of Israel’s Exigent Capital Group and will run the firm’s new office in Manama.
Trifon Natsis, co-founder of Brevan Howard Asset Management, has relocated to Abu Dhabi as the investment firm expands its hedge fund business in the UAE.
Geoff Morrell, a former Disney spokesman, has been retained by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to help explain the deal to merge its LIV Golf circuit with the PGA Tour.
Boaz Peer will replace Merav Weinryb as Qualcomm Ventures’ vice president and managing director for Europe and Israel, Calcalist reported.
Ebru Pakcan, Citigroup’s head of the Middle East and Africa cluster, told The National in an interview that the region is the bank’s fastest growing in the world, especially the six Gulf states.
Ahead on the Circuit
July 26-29, Tel Aviv, Israel: CyberWeek. Investors, corporate executives, government leaders speak at international conference on cybersecurity. Tel Aviv University campus.
June 27-29, Tel Aviv, Israel: Food Sec & Tech Israel. International conference on strategies and technological innovations in food security. Rabin Conference Center and Tel Hai College.
June 29, Dubai, UAE: Emirati Women Tech & Innovation Conference. Gathering of female business leaders from across the Middle East. Palm Jumeirah.
July 4-5, Tel Aviv, Israel: Future of AI. Conference bringing together investors, corporate executives and government officials on advances in artificial intelligence. Expo Tel Aviv.
July 20, Dubai, UAE: Blockchain Banking Fest. Entrepreneurs discuss impact of blockchain on banking and payments. DIFC Innovation Hub.
Culture Circuit
Qatar’s Entry: Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund struck a deal to buy a 5% stake in the parent company of the NBA’s Washington Wizards, the NHL’s Washington Capitals and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics as part of a $4 billion deal. It’s the Gulf state’s first foray into U.S. professional sports.
Golf Probe: PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan and LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman were invited to testify before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations next month.
Saudi Cycling: Saudi Arabia’s city-in-the-making Neom is exploring the possibility of taking over the naming rights for the Dutch cycling team Jumbo-Visma next year.
Eating Well: Dubai’s Orfali Bros Bistro, led by three brothers from Syria, was named the best restaurant in the Middle East and North Africa region by the gastronomic bible, “World’s 50 Best Restaurants.” Six of the top 10 MENA restaurants were in the UAE. Others included Fusions by Tala in Manama, Bahrain, at No. 3; George & John in Tel Aviv, Israel, at No. 6; Fakhreldin in Amman, Jordan, at No. 8; and Zooba in Cairo, at No. 9. Opa, a vegan restaurant in Tel Aviv, was spotlighted as “one to watch.”
