Rising Stars: Saher Flow Solutions

As business ventures that develop cutting-edge offerings on the basis of engineering innovation or scientific discoveries and advances, startups in the deep tech space are companies known to be working on the next major tech breakthrough- and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can proudly claim to be home to several of them now.

Following a review of their offerings, their potential, the funds they have raised, and many other such factors, we picked the top five emerging deep tech startups in the Kingdom today, and here's one of them: Saher Flow Solutions, a Saudi-Arabia based advanced sensing solution provider that offers a patented water-cut and multiphase flow meters which help oil and gas companies to manage unwanted produced water that results in increasing their costs per barrel.

Prof. Atif Shamim, a Professor of Electrical And Computer Engineering at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and founder of Saher Flow Solutions, says that he had a clear aim when starting up his enterprise, which was to introduce more sustainability-centric undertakings in the oil and gas industry. “We are the first deep tech startup to ever produce artificial intelligence-enabled multiphase flow metering solutions to help optimize upstream oil and gas production processes,” he explains. “Being the only multiphase flow metering technology provider in the whole GCC, we aim to democratize this industry within three to five years. It will help GCC states to save imports worth up to US$500 million, and create over 200 direct job opportunities.”

Running a deep tech enterprise in Saudi Arabia, Shamim says, has been both a challenging and a rewarding experience. “In line with vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has completely revamped its venture capital infrastructure, and it offers one of the highest level of investment opportunities for the startups,” he adds. “However, tech startups like ours are still relying on some specialized materials and equipment from outside the Kingdom, and this can impact our product development, and going forward, we hope that the Kingdom will be able to strengthen its tech infrastructure even more.”

For all the deep tech startups out there considering KSA as a place to start from or run their operations from, Shamim suggests that they kickstart their journeys at one of the many available technology incubators in the Kingdom. “They offer guidance, support, and a great launch pad,” he adds. “Then, finding a niche, and delivering minimum viable product to the market should be the next immediate focus, which will help gain investor confidence, and open up avenues for further expansion into the market.”