1001 Raises $30 Million for Sovereign AI in Gulf Infrastructure

1001, which is based in the Gulf and London, closed a $30 million Series A round on June 30, 2026. The round was led by US fund Lux Capital, with participation from Saudi investment arm Sanabil, which belongs to the Public Investment Fund, and other funds including 9Yards, Hanabi and General Catalyst. Founded in 2025 by Bilal Abugazaleh, formerly of ScaleAI, the company builds sovereign AI operating systems for operators of critical infrastructure across Gulf aviation, ports and energy, while keeping full data ownership and governance local. The round comes only eight months after a $9 million seed round.

The lens: Economic transformation and digital sovereignty
Abugazaleh said the Middle East “won’t necessarily compete on frontier models, but it is a relatively greenfield space in applied AI”. That is precisely the gap 1001 is targeting. It is not building a rival language model, but applying AI to physical assets such as ports and power stations through sovereign partnerships with Gulf governments. Sanabil’s participation confirms that the region’s sovereign wealth funds are no longer limiting themselves to financing large-scale computing infrastructure such as Hexagon. They are also backing smaller applied companies whose products could be exported regionally and globally.

Source: Semafor report on 1001’s funding round