Mubadala Capital ventures chief Ibrahim Ajami to launch $500M fund, Noha

ABU DHABI — Ibrahim Ajami, the head of ventures at Mubadala Capital, plans to leave in 2027 to launch Noha, a debut fund targeting around $500 million, with Mubadala Capital anchoring several hundred million and other UAE private capital groups in discussions to co-invest.

Ajami joined Mubadala in 2006, was a founding member of GlobalFoundries, and launched the San Francisco ventures platform in 2016, personally backing SpaceX, Waymo and Stripe. Noha keeps that orientation: roughly 90 percent of investments into US startups, the remainder into the UAE and beyond, with initial staff from his San Francisco team.

The offer to founders is access to UAE capital, customers and compute. The offer to the market is a new structure: a sovereign fund seeding its own ventures chief's independent shop rather than losing him.

Note what that signals. Gulf sovereigns have spent a decade hiring venture talent; this is the first time one has industrialised the exit. If Noha works, expect other sovereign platforms to formalise spinouts rather than fight departures.

The 2027 timeline leaves a long runway. Watch for the first co-investor names, which will tell you how much of the cheque is truly external.

FWDStart reported the plans, following the Financial Times exclusive.