OurCrowd’s AI initiative in Abu Dhabi combines deep tech with long-term foundations

Abu Dhabi is developing a knowledge economy with the regulatory framework and economic infrastructure required to attract businesses and talent from around the world

ON NOVEMBER 16th, during Abu Dhabi Finance Week, we announced the establishment of Integrated Data Intelligence Ltd. (IDI), OurCrowd’s first R&D center outside Israel. This new company, based in Abu Dhabi, will develop artificial intelligence (AI) for business. It is the result of a $60 million joint commitment by OurCrowd and the Innovation Programme of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO).

Why artificial intelligence, and why Abu Dhabi?

We believe that the widespread application of AI will underpin the next leap forward in technology for business, similar to the step change we saw in the past 15 years with the adoption of cloud computing.

AI will help the emergence of vital new technologies and accelerate the development of existing companies. If you are developing a new drug, you can do it faster and more accurately using AI. To figure out how your car can drive autonomously and not run into another person or vehicle on the highway, you need AI. If you are going to avoid financial crime and ensure fidelity for overseas financial transactions, you can do it faster and better using AI.

AI increases operational efficiency and accuracy across multiple technology sectors. It enables the discovery of hidden knowledge that is embedded in the digital records already held by companies, businesses and other enterprises by allowing them to catch and identify those nuggets amid a flood of data and information.

The growth of digital services means that every business is now collecting vast troves of data on its clients, its products and its markets. But the use of AI in business has so far been restricted to large corporations able to invest in the years of R&D required to mine that data, or to specific off-the-shelf applications developed for narrow purposes.

OurCrowd has spent 10 years and some $100 million developing its proprietary digital investment platform, which allows thousands of investors to invest in hundreds of companies and funds from almost every country in the world while adhering to the regulatory framework in each jurisdiction. Under the leadership of Dr. Hasanat Dewan, OurCrowd’s Executive Vice President, Platform Innovation and Technology, we have developed an AI capability that allows us to serve, manage and optimize those investments. Dr. Dewan previously led innovation and technology transformation for E*TRADE Financial Corp., BNY Mellon, Russell Investments Group, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and other global financial institutions.

IDI, which will be a wholly-owned OurCrowd company, will leverage the experience gained from building the OurCrowd platform, where we have used AI to democratize access to private investment – a notoriously hard-to-access asset class. The AI capabilities that we have created for OurCrowd can provide immediate, scalable technology for sectors and other industries.

IDI will continue to develop AI for OurCrowd, while using the technology as a blueprint for other platforms that will benefit by applying AI to their own data to increase efficiency and impact.

IDI will be a commercial AI company developing AI solutions for business, including project-based and AI-as-a-service offerings. It will act as a technical hub of excellence using advanced data automation, AI and machine learning models to reduce costs and improve outcomes for data-intensive tasks.

“IDI is the culmination of OurCrowd’s strategy to revolutionize its FinTech platform with AI functionality across the board,” Dr. Dewan says. “We intend to leverage these tools and architecture to deliver AI solutions that can be broadly used by external clients across industries including Financial Services, FinTech, Energy, Telecommunications, Healthcare and Government.”

“What we have done for OurCrowd can be transferred without redoing everything,” he says. “We can re-use the foundational technical work and the IP architecture to accelerate the development of solutions for particular clients.”

This new chapter in the development of OurCrowd combines the promise of groundbreaking new technology and the power of long-term relationships.

OurCrowd’s secret sauce goes beyond technology to the connections among our global community of more than 200,000 accredited investors, entrepreneurs, multinational executives, government officials and out-of-the-box innovators. We create, fund and develop new technology businesses together via our online platform, and we create, nurture and deepen personal and business relationships that we celebrate each year in Jerusalem at our annual Global Investor Summit.

These connections lie at the heart of our business and help us to develop detailed local knowledge of specific sectors and ecosystems in Israel and beyond. Dr. Dewan was introduced to OurCrowd by Dr. Sabah al-Binali, Executive Chairman of OurCrowd Arabia, who has known him since they met while postgraduate students at Columbia. Dr. al-Binali himself came to OurCrowd via another mutual friend from his student days at Princeton.

OurCrowd’s commitment to building long-term relationships also underlies our decision to base Integrated Data Intelligence Ltd. in Abu Dhabi.

Guided by Dr. al-Binali, we found in Abu Dhabi the development of a knowledge economy nurtured by a robust and stable government which is creating the regulatory framework and economic infrastructure required to attract businesses and talent from around the world. Abu Dhabi’s commitment to the AI revolution is symbolized by the founding in 2019 of Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, a graduate research institute dedicated to advancing AI as a global force for humanity. At this unique institution, the UAE’s leaders are educating top talent, creating a strategic think tank for the public and private sectors, and fostering a powerful AI innovation ecosystem.

IDI will benefit from ADIO’s Innovation Programme, which provides financial and non-financial incentives to accelerate growth. And it will be housed in Hub71, the modern tech campus hosted by the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) on Al Maryah Island in the heart of the UAE's capital city. Our partnership with ADIO, ADGM and Hub71 reflects the hospitable business environment we have found as we embark on this journey together in Abu Dhabi. We hope that IDI will in turn contribute to the Abu Dhabi innovation ecosystem as we recruit leading AI data scientists from around the world.

Our decision to establish our first R&D center outside Israel in Abu Dhabi is a concrete expression of OurCrowd’s continuing commitment to our long-term relationship with the UAE, which we have been expanding since the Abraham Accords in 2020 normalized relations between Israel and the UAE.  OurCrowd was the first Israeli VC to appoint an Emirati – Dr. al-Binali – as a senior executive, the first to be licensed by the ADGM to operate in the UAE, and is now the first to open an R&D center, firmly establishing our permanent presence in the country.

Our bet on Abu Dhabi expresses our faith in a shared future of technological innovation offering increased prosperity to all the peoples of our region and beyond.

About ‘Investors on the Frontlines’

I’m the CEO and Founder of OurCrowd, the global equity investment platform that gives individual accredited investors access to pre-IPO startup deals alongside top-tier VCs. If you are an investor, private family office or financial advisor, subscribe here for my biweekly commentary or follow me on Twitter. I welcome your comments in the response section below.