Saudi leads US tech startup’s $175m fundraising round

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Saudi Arabia’s Sanabil Investments and Los Angeles-headquartered March Capital have co-led the $175 million funding round for Nile, a US-based networking startup co-founded by former Cisco Systems top executives John Chambers and Pankaj Patel.

Other corporate investors include Saudi Arabia’s Solutions by stc, Liberty Global Ventures, and stc Corporate Investment Fund, Nile said in a statement.

The startup’s valuation was not disclosed, but it has raised $300 million since inception.

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Data from PitchBook pegged the company’s valuation at $395 million in 2020, according to Reuters.

Nile provides a network-as-a-service (NaaS) solution, which focuses on secure wired and wireless products, offering an alternative in building corporate Wi-Fi, a market dominated by Cisco, Juniper Networks, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Aruba Wireless.

“For this Series C round, we felt it important to raise funds with strategic partners who are committed to driving Nile into the Middle East and working with their partners on bringing Nile deeper into Europe,” Pankaj Patel, chief executive at Nile told news site Techcrunch.

“It’s this desire for strategic investment that led us down the path of pursuing equity over debt,” he added.