• Saudi AI startup RIME has raised more than $2 million in a Seed funding round led by SEEDRA Ventures, with participation from Athla Investment, Unity Invest Partners, and angel investors.
• Founded in 2024 by Mohammed Almarshidi and Arif Alotaibi, RIME develops a platform that enables enterprises to deploy AI Agents powered by Edge Computing and AIoT to make real-time decisions at operational sites.
• The company will use the new funding to strengthen its presence in Saudi Arabia, accelerate platform development, and help enterprises deploy scalable AI applications across day-to-day operations.

Press release:

Rime, a Saudi startup specialising in operational AI solutions, announced the successful closure of a seed investment round exceeding $2 million. The round was led by Seedra Ventures, with participation from Athlah Investment, Unity Invest Partners, and a group of prominent angel investors. The funding will support the company's expansion plans and accelerate the development of its proprietary technology platform. 

This investment follows a Pre-Seed round previously led by Seedra Ventures, reaffirming the firm’s confidence in Rime’s vision and founding team. 

Today, Rime connects more than 6,000 cameras to AI agents across 2,000 operational sites for a growing clientele of major retail and service chains in the GCC. This rapid expansion positions Rime as one of the fastest-growing Physical AI platforms in the region. 

Rime delivers an end-to-end platform that enables enterprises to build and deploy autonomous AI agents directly within physical locations, such as retail stores, branches, and service centres. Data processing and decision-making occur on-site at the moment an event happens, eliminating the reliance on remote data centres. 

By harnessing Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) and edge computing, Rime’s platform links AI agents directly to onsite cameras and sensors. By unifying visual inputs with sensor readings, the system drives instant on-premise actions and responses, enabling organisations to boost operational efficiency, enforce compliance, and reduce operational waste and unaccounted losses. 

Mohammed Al Marshadi, Co-founder of Rime, stated: 

"We are moving into a new era of Physical AI, where systems move beyond screens to interact and make decisions directly within operational environments. We strongly believe that processing data on-site via edge computing is the foundational pillar for running field-level AI agents. It delivers ultra-fast processing, seamless integration with existing systems, and real-time response capability. Our goal is to offer a secure, user-friendly platform where we handle end-to-end infrastructure

deployment and management, allowing our clients to achieve high reliability without technical overhead." 

Abdullah Al Munif, Co-founder of Seedra Ventures, stated: 

"Our investment in Rime aligns with Seedra's Venture Studio model. We have partnered with Rime since its earliest stages, collaborating closely with the founding team on product development and market access. 

As AI models become widely accessible and commoditised, model capabilities alone are no longer the key differentiator in the sector. The true value lies in delivering intelligent decisions directly to operational frontline environments in real time. Enterprises across our region possess vast existing infrastructure of cameras and sensors that historically served passive recording roles. Transforming these legacy assets into an active operational intelligence layer represents one of the largest market opportunities today. This is precisely what Rime is executing, and their rapid expansion to over 2,000 operational sites underscores the strong market demand." 

Rime will allocate the capital to consolidate its footprint in the Saudi market, accelerate platform capabilities, and empower enterprises to build reliable, scalable AI applications. These initiatives directly support the goals of Saudi Arabia's National Strategy for Data and AI and Vision 2030.