Muscat's Phaze Ventures Scores 3 Global AI Wins in a Week

Three portfolio companies. Three separate funding and partnership announcements. All within the same week. For Phaze Ventures, the Muscat-based venture capital firm that describes itself as Oman's oldest private VC, early September 2026 has turned into a showcase moment for what an Omani-headquartered investor can do when it bets on artificial intelligence founders far beyond the Sultanate's borders.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Arabic-language AI company Arabic.AI (built by Tarjama, a Phaze portfolio company) secured a strategic investment and commercial partnership from Saudi Arabia's PIF-owned HUMAIN on September 1, 2026, according to Wamda.
• AI fundraising platform Metal, backed by Phaze since earlier this year, closed a $4.5 million seed round led by a16z Speedrun and Y Combinator, reported around September 2, 2026 by ProPakistani.
• US surgical robotics startup Andromeda Surgical, seeded by Phaze in September 2025, raised a $15 million Series A in August 2026, taking its total funding to $30 million.
• Oman Observer rounded up the three developments on September 4, 2026, framing them as evidence of Phaze's growing international AI footprint.
• Phaze Ventures, founded in Oman in 2018, typically writes checks of $100,000 to $2 million from pre-seed to Series A across the GCC and North America.

🚀 What Happened This Week

Muscat-based Phaze Ventures is not a household name outside venture circles, but its portfolio just had a very loud week. According to Oman Observer, three separate portfolio companies disclosed fresh capital or strategic partnerships within days of each other, a cluster the paper described as strengthening the firm's "global AI portfolio presence."

The most significant of the three, in terms of regional weight, involves Tarjama, the Arabic-language technology company behind the Arabic.AI product suite. On September 1, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund-owned AI company HUMAIN announced a strategic investment in and commercial partnership with Arabic.AI and fellow language-tech firm Tarjama, according to Wamda. The investment amount was not disclosed.

"Arabic remains one of the most complex and important languages for enterprise AI to serve effectively," said Tareq Amin, CEO of HUMAIN, in comments reported by Wamda. Nour Al Hassan, founder and CEO of Arabic.AI, added: "Arabic is where enterprise AI is tested hardest, and it is what we have built for."

Phaze Ventures first backed Tarjama's Arabic.AI platform through a $15 million Series A in May 2025, alongside Global Ventures, Wamda Capital, TA Ventures and Golden Gate Ventures, per the same Wamda report. The HUMAIN deal now gives that earlier bet a much bigger regional distribution channel, with the partnership set to bring an Arabic-first translation management system and document intelligence tools to enterprise customers, with initial solutions unveiled at LEAP 2026 in Riyadh.

📊 Three Portfolio Wins, One Week

Metal, an AI operating system for startup fundraising founded by Airlift co-founder Usman Gul, disclosed that its customers raised a combined $542 million in 2026, according to reporting from ProPakistani. Phaze Ventures is listed among the seed investors alongside a16z Speedrun, Y Combinator, Rebel Fund, Gaingels, Indus Valley Capital and Pioneer Fund.

Andromeda Surgical, a US company building AI-guided autonomous surgical robots, is the third name in the cluster. Phaze seeded the company in September 2025, and the startup's $15 million Series A in August, led by Standard Capital, pushed its total funding to $30 million as it prepares its first commercial hospital deployments.

🏛️ Who Is Phaze Ventures

Founded in Oman in 2018, Phaze Ventures calls itself the Sultanate's oldest private venture capital firm. It backs more than 20 companies at early stage, primarily business-to-business AI and deep-tech founders, with a stated focus that spans the GCC and North America rather than Oman alone. Typical check sizes run from $100,000 to $2 million, covering pre-seed through Series A rounds, according to the profile carried by Oman Observer.

That model differs from Oman-based funds built to seed the domestic market. Cyfr Capital, for instance, recently backed five Omani startups spanning car trading, food delivery, tourism and AI in partnership with Future Fund Oman, a portfolio squarely rooted in the Sultanate's own commercial fabric. Phaze's approach is closer to a fund of scouts: an Oman-headquartered team hunting for founders anywhere, then bringing the returns, reputation and networks home.

🇴🇲 Why This Matters for Oman

Oman's Vision 2040 leans heavily on building a diversified, knowledge-based economy, and one underdiscussed piece of that puzzle is whether Omani capital can compete for deals outside the Gulf, not just inside it. A Muscat-headquartered VC placing early bets on a Pakistani fundraising platform, a US surgical robotics company, and an Arabic-language AI firm that just landed backing from Saudi Arabia's HUMAIN suggests Oman-based capital can win a seat at genuinely competitive, international cap tables.

It also matters for Oman's own AI ambitions. HUMAIN's investment in Arabic.AI is explicitly about solving Arabic-language enterprise AI, a challenge just as relevant to government and business users inside Oman as it is in Saudi Arabia. If Arabic-first tools reach maturity through this partnership, Omani enterprises and public agencies stand to benefit as regional customers, not just as a training-data source for someone else's model.

Finally, stories like this one feed the broader case Oman is trying to make to global investors and founders: that Muscat is not merely a market to sell into, but a place capital and talent can originate from. That narrative sits alongside other recent moves in the Sultanate's venture landscape and complements profiles like Saif Al-Essai's pre-seed record with Sampo AI, another data point in the argument that Oman-rooted founders and funds are increasingly playing on a global, not just regional, field.