MGX expands global AI footprint with investment in Anthropic

Abu Dhabi-based AI investment firm MGX joined Anthropic’s latest fundraising round, which valued the U.S. artificial intelligence company at $965 billion.

MGX was among the major investors in the Series H round led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital.

The investment deepens MGX’s growing presence in artificial intelligence alongside earlier funding of OpenAI and other tech ventures that have made Abu Dhabi one of AI’s global hubs.

In October, MGX joined the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership and BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners consortium in a deal to acquire Plano, Texas-based Aligned Data Centers.

Partners Capital opens in Abu Dhabi with family business pact

Partners Capital, a London-based investment firm, has opened an office in Abu Dhabi and teamed up with a local business alliance to guide family-owned companies on improving their finances.

The firm, which has $75 billion under management and specializes in advising university endowments, foundations and family offices, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Abu Dhabi Family Business Council on Monday during a launch event at the St. Regis Abu Dhabi hotel. Among its clients are the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Guggenheim Foundation and New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

Partners Capital CEO Arjun Raghavan said in an interview with The Circuit that the firm decided to go ahead with opening the Abu Dhabi office despite concerns about regional instability stemming from the Iran war.

“The question is: should we hit the pause button given what’s happened?” Raghavan said. “And our view was, it doesn’t make any sense to pause. This is what we want to do long-term, and now is as good a time as any.”

Family-owned businesses dominate much of the UAE economy, controlling major interests in sectors including retail, real estate, logistics, banking and industry. In recent years, both Abu Dhabi and Dubai have seen an influx of family investment offices from abroad, drawn by low taxes, light regulation and access to large pools of Gulf money.

Welcoming the investment firm on behalf of the government was Zaki Nusseibeh, Cultural Advisor to President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and Chancellor of UAE University, who said the country is focused on supporting private businesses as it pushes to diversify the economy beyond oil.

“It is the private sector that will be driving growth from now on,” Nusseibeh said.

MGX mulls major investment in Anthropic’s $20B funding round

Abu Dhabi-backed investment firm MGX may be close to putting hundreds of millions of dollars into AI startup Anthropic as part of a massive fundraising round expected to top $20 billion.

The round, which would value Anthropic at about $350 billion, has attracted major support from Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and other large institutional backers, Bloomberg reports.

MGX was set up last year with support from Abu Dhabi funds including Mubadala and technology group G42, with a mandate to invest heavily in artificial intelligence and related infrastructure.

The firm has already taken stakes in OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI.

KKR to invest in Gulf Data Hub’s seven branches across region

KKR plans to invest in Gulf Data Hub, one of the largest independent data center platforms in the Middle East, amid skyrocketing global data consumption driven by AI and cryptocurrencies.

The announcement will make the global investment firm a major player in the regional data storage market, as GDH owns a portfolio of seven state-of-the-art data centers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and additional facilities planned in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman, Bloomberg reports.

Prior investments by KKR in the region include a strategic partnership with ADNOC to create ADNOC Oil Pipelines.

The fund also acquired a commercial aircraft portfolio from Etihad Airways in 2020 through Altitude Aircraft Leasing.

$1.2 trillion Nuveen opens shop at Abu Dhabi Global Market

Nuveen is the second trillion-dollar investment firm to open shop this month at Abu Dhabi Global Market.

Prior to Nuveen, which manages $1.2 trillion in assets, Prudential Financial’s PGIM, with $1.3 trillion under management, also opened an office in the UAE capital in September.

Nuveen CEO William Huffman told The National, that his firm, which holds the assets of the U.S. teachers’ pension fund TIAA, offers the Middle East market “forward-looking opportunities including infrastructure, renewable energy and real estate technology.”

He said that “based on our conversations with investors, we believe… our reputation … aligns closely with the needs of clients in the region.”