Princess Loulwa Al Saud, Co-founder and CEO of RiseUp Saudi, underlined on Thursday the importance of seeking quality investors for startups rather than chasing bigger sums of money.

“If you’re looking for funds or you’re attracting people to invest, you should not only look for money, you should always look for who is investing with you. And the greatest rule to have is finding a mentor for you,” Al Saud told a panel at the Web Summit in Qatar.

The 23-year-old Saudi royal and entrepreneur offered her insights into the world of startups in her panel, titled ‘Risks to rewards: what your startup needs to know about funding.’

Al Saud founded +966, a fashion boutique consultancy, in 2022 and Gotrend.com, an e-commerce fashion platform. Her companies marked her first steps into her career path, eventually becoming the co-founder and CEO of RiseUp Saudi.

After finding a passion for entrepreneurship in her second year of university, she also met Abdelhameed Sharara, the founder and CEO of Egypt’s Riseup Summit, the Middle East and North African region’s largest innovation and entrepreneurship summit.

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Attending the event in Egypt led to a light-bulb moment for Al Saud, who decided to bring the mega event to her home country, Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom is hosting the event between April 27-29 at the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology.

“I was wondering, Why wouldn’t we expand to Saudi?” Al Saud told the panel, recounting the moment she decided to bring the summit to the Gulf.

As she commented on her interactions with Sharara, she stressed the need to have a mentor rather than just monetary investments.

“You cannot only have money, so when you get the money, you need someone to guide you. How can you distribute this money?” she said.

When asked about ways startups can negotiate venture capital (VC), she said the matter was complicated and had a wide range of answers. However, she advised joining an incubator to secure a VC.

“You need to at least join an incubator or an accelerator for you to get the knowledge and know how to convince them,” she said.

The Web Summit in Qatar marked the largest-ever gathering of international startups in the Middle East and North Africa. The major event gathered 1,043 startups and 15,453 attendees from 118 countries.

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This is also the first time the Web Summit has taken place in the Middle East.

In seeking to encourage regional and international economic growth, Qatar announced a $1 billion Qatar Investment Authority investment in international and regional venture capital funds on Monday.

Speaking to Doha News shortly after her panel, Al Saud expressed her pride in witnessing the major tech event take place in the Gulf region.

“I’m amazed, to be honest, for seeing such an event with such an organisation and how smooth the process was here in Doha […] having such an event in our region is a great add. It’s very impactful,” Al Saud said.



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