MUSCAT, SEPT 3
An Oman-based venture capital firm is gaining broader exposure to the international artificial-intelligence investment cycle as companies in its portfolio attract fresh funding and strategic backing from larger investors.
Muscat-based Phaze Ventures is an existing investor in Metal, an AI fundraising platform that has disclosed $4.5 million in total funding from investors including a16z, Y Combinator, Rebel Fund, Gaingels, Indus Valley Capital, Phaze Ventures, Pioneer Fund and others.
Separately, Arabic.AI, another Phaze portfolio company, announced on September 1 that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund-owned artificial-intelligence company HUMAIN had made an undisclosed strategic investment in the business and entered into a commercial partnership with it.
Taken together, the developments provide fresh evidence of an outward-facing strand of Oman's technology investment landscape: a venture firm headquartered in the Sultanate of Oman taking early-stage positions in AI and deep-technology businesses operating across North America, Europe and the wider region.
Phaze Ventures describes itself as Oman's oldest private venture capital firm. Founded in Oman in 2018, it says it has backed more than 20 companies and focuses on early-stage business-to-business AI and deep-tech investments across the GCC and North America.
The firm says it typically invests from pre-seed to Series A, with ticket sizes ranging from $100,000 to $2 million.
Its current portfolio includes AI companies classified by Phaze as being based in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the UAE and Oman.
Individual amounts committed by Phaze to most of these portfolio companies have not been publicly disclosed, so the value of its exposure to international AI businesses cannot be independently calculated from available announcements.
The latest developments are nevertheless notable because they show some of those early-stage positions progressing alongside larger international investors.
Metal is developing an AI-native platform for startup fundraising, including investor discovery, relationship intelligence, outreach, pipeline management and other capital-raising workflows.
Phaze announced its investment in Metal on June 20, saying it had invested in the company earlier in 2026. Metal has since disclosed that it has raised $4.5 million to date.
The company says more than 1,000 founders use its platform to raise capital each year and that paying customers have raised $542 million in its 2026 financial year. Those figures are company-reported.
A second development came on September 1, when Arabic.AI said HUMAIN had made a strategic investment and entered a partnership with Arabic.AI and Tarjama&.
HUMAIN is a PIF company developing full-stack artificial-intelligence capabilities. The partnership combines HUMAIN's AI infrastructure, computing capacity and models with Arabic.AI and Tarjama&'s Arabic-language technology and enterprise delivery expertise.
Initial areas of cooperation include an Arabic-first translation management system, archive digitisation and document-intelligence agents designed to read, check and draft contracts, tenders and filings with human oversight.
The companies said the investment is intended to accelerate deployment of Arabic.AI's solutions to enterprise customers in Saudi Arabia, with the partnership also targeting wider international markets.
Phaze said it first backed Arabic.AI through its investment in the company's $15 million Series A in May 2025.
The HUMAIN transaction is relevant from an Oman investment perspective because it brings a PIF-owned AI company into a business already backed by an Oman-headquartered venture investor.
Phaze's international portfolio extends beyond Metal and Arabic.AI.
On August 4, US surgical robotics company Andromeda Surgical announced a $15 million Series A led by Standard Capital, bringing its total funding to $30 million. The round included Y Combinator, Lingotto Innovation, Alumni Ventures and Phaze Ventures.
Phaze said it first invested in Andromeda at seed stage in September 2025. The company develops surgical robotics combining AI-driven anatomical mapping with surgeon-supervised automation.
Other disclosed AI holdings include Canadian AI networking platform Boardy.ai, US healthcare AI company Sully.ai and UK-based Clarity, an AI-powered customer-experience platform. Phaze also lists AI investments in Oman.
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