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Ruya Partners announced the provision of a $15 million senior secured private credit facility to WhiteShield, an AI-native policy intelligence and sovereign intelligence company principally based in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The transaction represents the seventh deal from Ruya’s flagship private credit fund and marks the firm’s first investment in the sovereign intelligence category. Funds will support WhiteShield’s continued technology development, platform deployment and international expansion as governments seek tools to adapt policy at the pace of technological change.
WhiteShield, founded in 2011, combines public policy expertise with proprietary data assets and AI systems to assist governments, multilateral institutions and corporates in areas including economic competitiveness, workforce transformation and societal adaptation. Its platforms and policy interventions have reached more than 20 million citizens, including 550,000 students, while supporting the creation of 200,000 jobs and trade interventions across 37 countries. The company’s technology portfolio features tools such as QuantumEd for human capital intelligence, Quantum Leap for economic intelligence, Quantum Navigator for societal intelligence and XShield as its sovereign intelligence engine.
In the statement, Fadi Farra, chief executive of WhiteShield, highlighted the evolving needs of governments facing rapid AI-driven change. “My partners and I built Whiteshield to help governments translate ambition into measurable outcomes for citizens,” Farra said. “For decades, governments have invested in information systems. The next era is intelligence systems. Our ambition is to build the sovereign intelligence layer that enables nations to learn, decide and adapt at the speed of change.” Farra added that Ruya Partners structured its capital to support the company’s future trajectory.
Rashid Siddiqi, partner and co-chief investment officer at Ruya Partners, emphasised the unique positioning of the recipient company. “The companies we most want to finance share a common trait: they hold an advantage no competitor can replicate,” Siddiqi said. “For Whiteshield, that isn’t the technology it’s the trust of the institutions it serves and demand rooted in real government priorities. Backing a business with a moat like that, with capital structured around how it actually grows, is precisely what we set out to do in a region that is rapidly transforming its economy.” Omar AlYawer, partner and chief capital formation officer at Ruya, noted the alignment with the firm’s regional strategy.
An IMARC Group assessment found the GCC artificial intelligence market was valued at $6.22 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $23.03 billion by 2034, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 14.87 percent. MarketsandMarkets data places the Saudi Arabian artificial intelligence market at $2.14 billion in 2025 with expectations to grow to $16.90 billion by 2032 at a 34.3 percent compound annual growth rate, driven by national strategies including Vision 2030. Ruya Partners, which Bloomberg reported in February was raising a $400 million private credit fund, maintains a focus on bespoke funding for founder-led businesses across developing markets with prior investments spanning power, industrial, fitness, food, media technology and logistics technology sectors.
