Saudi AI voice startup Sawt raises $1 million funding
T2 and STV lead Seed round in Saudi AI voice startup funding
#SaudiArabia #AIvoice - Saudi Arabia-based AI voice startup Sawt has completed a SAR 3.75 million ($1m) pre-Seed funding round led by regional technology investor T2 and venture capital firm STV's newly launched AI Fund. Founded in 2024, the Riyadh-based artificial intelligence voice platform company has developed Arabic-native voice models enabling businesses to handle customer support, bookings, and sales through natural-sounding AI agents. According to Sawt, the new investment will support the startup’s technical infrastructure scaling and proprietary model enhancement, as it targets the estimated $800 million to $1.2 billion GCC call centre automation market.
SO WHAT? - Arabic language AI solutions seem to be receiving more and more attention from investors as the technology becomes more reliable and the market opportunity becomes clearer. As AI voice continues to play a bigger role in global customer support, the pressure is on to find Arabic conversation AI solutions that can reliably handle colloquial Arabic conversations at scale. This investment is also testament to the growing number of viable AI startups being launched in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf’s biggest market for Arabic language products.
Here are some key points about this announcement:
Saudi Arabian AI voice startup Sawt has closed a SAR 3.75 million ($1m) pre-Seed funding round led by regional technology investor T2 and venture capital firm STV's newly launched dedicated AI Fund. Sawt, which develops Arabic-native AI voice models for customer service transformation, is the new STV AI Fund’s very first investment.
Founded in 2024 by entrepreneur Abdulmalik Al-Saeed, the platform enables businesses to handle customer support, bookings, and sales through natural-sounding AI agents that operate continuously without human intervention.
Within two months of its launch, the new venture has served dozens of businesses and powered hundreds of thousands of voice interactions using proprietary Arabic voice models developed entirely in Saudi Arabia.
According to Sawt, the pre-Seed funding will support team expansion, technical infrastructure scaling, and enhanced proprietary model development to handle millions of voice interactions across the regional market.
The GCC’s call centre automation market is estimated to be worth $800 million to $1.2 billion.
ZOOM OUT - Sawt’s $1 million pre-Seed funding is the third AI startup investment round to be announced from Saudi Arabia this month. Two week’s ago, Riyadh-based AI customer experience management (CXM) platform Lucidya announced the largest ever Saudi Series B funding round, securing $30 million. The same week, conversational AI startup Wittify.ai revealed its successful $1.5 million Pre-Seed funding round, supporting its development of an advanced Arabic-first conversational AI platform. It’s no coincidence that all three Saudi ventures target customer care and call centre markets, and all three are focused on developing Arabic-first platforms.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Read more about recent Saudi AI startup funding rounds:
Wittify.ai raises $1.5M Pre-Seed funding for Arabic AI (Middle East AI News)
Lucidya raises $30M in Saudi Arabia's biggest AI round (Middle East AI News)
Riyadh-based Darwinz AI secures $325k Seed round (Middle East AI News)
TruBuild raises $1 million Seed Round (Middle East AI News)