Dr. Nabeel Koshak, CEO and board member of the Saudi Venture Capital Co.

Dr. Nabeel Koshak

• Koshak is a prominent Saudi academic and entrepreneur

Dr. Nabeel Koshak is the CEO and board member of the Saudi Venture Capital Co. (SVC).
SVC is a government venture capital firm established in 2018. It aims to develop the venture capital ecosystem in Saudi Arabia to support startups by co-investing along with angel investors, venture capitalists, and sophisticated investors in startups as well as investing in funds.
It recently signed an investment deal with a venture capital fund licensed by the Capital Market Authority and founded by Osool & Bakheet Investment Co. (OBIC) and iMENA Group. The signing ceremony took place virtually between Koshak and OBIC’s CEO Mazin Al-Dawood, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
Koshak is a prominent Saudi academic and entrepreneur. He was the founder and CEO of five tech startups.
He was also the founder and angel investor at Athaal (Angel Investors Group), which invests in early-stage startups across the MENA region.
He is chairman of Saudi Arabia’s Global Entrepreneurship Network and a member of the investment committees at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology’s Innovation Fund.
He was the founding dean of the Prince Mohammad bin Salman College (MBSC) between 2017 and 2019. It is Saudi Arabia’s first institute of higher learning specializing in leadership and entrepreneurial development.
Established in 2016, the MBSC is located at the King Abdullah Economic City near Jeddah. Koshak is a member of MBSC’s board of trustees.
Koshak is the former president of Al-Baha University and the former vice president for business and innovation at Umm Al-Qura University (UQU).
He was an associate professor conducting research at the Hajj and Umrah Research Institute while teaching courses at UQU’s College of Engineering and Architecture.
Koshak is the former director of the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology GIS Technology Innovation Center at UQU, and the former chairman of the board of directors at the Transportation and Crowd Management Innovation Center.
He is the co-founder and former general supervisor of UQU’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute, and the co-founder and vice-chairman of the board of directors of Wadi Makkah Co., a platform for launching startup companies in various sectors in the Kingdom.
Koshak received his bachelor’s degree in architecture from UQU in Makkah in 1993, and his master’s degree from Colorado University in 1997. He received a doctorate in computational design from Carnegie Mellon University in 2002. He later joined Harvard’s executive education programs.
He is a member of various boards including the Middle East Venture Capital Association, the King Abdulaziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity and the executive committee of the King Faisal International Prize.