UAE-based Koble raises $1.2M pre-seed to disrupt the startup funding process

UAE based Koble, an AI-powered platform that empowers investors to make better, data-driven investment decisions, has raised $1.2 million in pre-seed funding to develop its algorithm and technology further.

Koble was co-founded by Damian Cristian and Guy Conway, with the aim to transform the process of sourcing, evaluating, and investing in pre-seed and seed-stage startups using its unique dataset and proprietary algorithms.

The startup is tackling a large problem, with only 2.5% of early-stage investments achieving the desired 20x return, leading to less than 5% of VC funds achieving the desired 3x on investment.

Koble says the cost are massive as LPs lose money (or worse avoid early-stage investing altogether), founders with good ideas cannot access capital, and ultimately economic and social progress suffers.

The startup claims it uses quantitative strategies to disrupt early-stage startup investing and deliver risk-adjusted returns that outperform traditional venture capital firms.

Koble’s tech platform pulls massive volumes of unstructured company and founder data from multiple sources, feeding data to a proprietary predictive deep learning model that calculates the probability of success for startups.

The round was led by Modus, a venture platform in MENA, and Pitchdrive, a Belgium-based VC, and included participation from angel investors interested in the potential of AI in venture investing.