AREP closes pre-Seed round led by Golden Assets for Saudi lab training push
The 2023-founded Saudi startup runs a laboratory training academy and a procurement marketplace for research institutions.
Anecdoted Desk Anecdoted Desk covers rolling funding rounds and startup news across the UAE and MENA -- the wire for deals as they're announced. team@anecdoted.com
AREP, short for Academic Research and Educational Platform, has closed a pre-Seed funding round led by Golden Assets Investment. The company did not disclose the size of the round. It is the first funding AREP has disclosed since it was founded in 2023.
The Saudi startup works on education technology and research enablement, and its founders are Hussain Alhamami, Ibrahim Asiri, Rayan Ahmed and Alhanouf Alhmammi. It targets two gaps that surface repeatedly in educational and research laboratories: the shortage of people trained to work in them, and the difficulty of procuring what they need to run.
Academy and Marketplace
Those gaps map onto two products. AREP Academy trains people in laboratory sciences and research, combining digital learning with practical experience. Its platform includes video courses, laboratory simulations and knowledge resources, and the company runs hands-on workshops inside university and research laboratories. The academy also offers simulated laboratory tests and tools that use AI to support performance assessment.
AREP Marketplace addresses the supply side. It is a digital platform where educational and research institutions can source scientific equipment and supplies, built around the procurement and logistical problems that come with laboratory requirements — the ordering, the delivery, the items that stall a project when they do not arrive.
Programme backing and what comes next
AREP developed its model with support from several Saudi technology and entrepreneurship programmes. MVPLAB and BOOST at The Garage backed the company, as did the National Technology Development Program (NTDP).
The new capital will go toward further development of AREP's technology products and an expansion of its operations across Saudi Arabia. The company is also preparing for the possibility of regional expansion at a later stage. It has not given a timeline for that, and the pre-Seed round is early money by any measure.
Pairing training with sourcing puts AREP in front of the same institutions on two different fronts. A university that cannot equip a laboratory cannot run the experiments its researchers planned. A laboratory that cannot find trained technicians cannot make use of the equipment it already has. The buyer of the instruments and the employer of the graduate are often the same department, which gives the company a single customer base to serve rather than two separate markets to reach.
The company describes its wider strategy as two-part: developing laboratory talent, and improving access to the resources and supplies that educational and research institutions rely on. Both feed into a stated aim of supporting Saudi Arabia's research, development and innovation ecosystem.
AREP has not said how far the pre-Seed money will carry it, or when a decision on moving beyond the Saudi market would be made.
