Saudi startup RIME, specializing in operational artificial intelligence solutions, has raised more than $2 million in a seed funding round led by SEEDRA Ventures, with participation from Athla Investment, Unity Invest Partners, and several angel investors. The funding follows a pre-seed round also led by SEEDRA Ventures, reflecting the investor’s continued support for the company and its founding team.
RIME was founded in 2024 by Mohammed Al-Morshidi and Aref Al-Otaibi. It is developing a platform that enables companies to deploy artificial intelligence agents based on edge computing and artificial intelligence of things technologies, with the aim of making real-time decisions within operational sites.
An Artificial Intelligence Platform for On-Site Operations
RIME’s platform connects artificial intelligence agents directly to cameras and sensors located at sites, such as retail stores, branches, and service centers. The platform processes data and makes decisions at the site itself when an event occurs, rather than relying on remote data centers.
The platform combines visual inputs with sensor readings to enable immediate actions and responses on-site. According to the company, these capabilities can help organizations improve operational efficiency, strengthen compliance with procedures, and reduce waste and unrecorded losses.
Deployment Across More Than 2,000 Sites
RIME currently connects more than 6,000 cameras to artificial intelligence agents distributed across 2,000 operational sites, serving a customer base that includes major retail and service chains in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The company describes this expansion as placing it among the fastest-growing physical artificial intelligence platforms in the region.
Mohammed Al-Morshidi, co-founder of RIME, said the company believes physical artificial intelligence is moving systems from operating within screens to interacting and making decisions directly in operational environments. He added that processing data on-site through edge computing provides fast processing, integration with existing systems, and real-time responsiveness, noting that the company aims to offer a secure and easy-to-use platform whose infrastructure, deployment, and management it handles end to end.
Use of Funding and Expansion Plans
RIME will allocate the new capital to strengthen its presence in the Saudi market, accelerate the development of its platform’s capabilities, and help organizations build reliable and scalable artificial intelligence applications within their daily operations.
Abdullah Al-Munif, co-founder of SEEDRA Ventures, said his company’s investment aligns with its venture studio model, explaining that it has worked with RIME since its early stages on product development and go-to-market efforts. Al-Munif believes that the value of artificial intelligence solutions is not determined solely by model capabilities as they become more widespread and available, but by their ability to deliver intelligent decisions directly and in real time within operational environments.
He also noted that organizations in the region have an extensive infrastructure of cameras and sensors that historically served a passive recording role, while transforming them into an operational intelligence layer creates significant market opportunities. RIME says its initiatives support the objectives of Saudi Arabia’s National Strategy for Data and Artificial Intelligence and Vision 2030.