Saudi Arabia’s growing gaming industry received a significant boost as Exel by Merak, a subsidiary of Merak Capital, awarded a collective $5.1 million investment to 17 startups during its Demo Day. This points the conclusion of its second 13-week gaming accelerator cohort.
The Riyadh-based initiative, backed by the Merak Gaming Fund, brought together founders, investors, and industry stakeholders. This was in a showcase that highlighted not only newly developed games but also the Kingdom’s accelerating ambition to build a competitive local game development ecosystem.
Through structured mentorship, product refinement, publishing readiness, and commercial strategy support, the program positioned participating studios for scale while reinforcing Saudi Arabia’s broader innovation and digital economy agenda.
What You Should Know About Exel by Merak
Exel by Merak operates as a subsidiary of Merak Capital, with a clear mandate to stimulate innovation-driven entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia. Its investment strategy centers on identifying high-potential sectors and building structured support systems to help founders succeed.
According to Faisal Sedrani, CEO of Exel by Merak, the organization’s mission is deeply tied to innovation enablement within the Kingdom.
“Exel’s objective is to support innovation in the Kingdom by enabling entrepreneurs and contributing to the development of supportive environments for innovation. Our work focuses on identifying opportunities within promising sectors and supporting their growth.
“We began by focusing on the gaming sector, supporting founders and studios as they build and scale game development capabilities within Saudi Arabia,” he stated.
The decision to prioritize gaming underscores both the commercial potential of the global gaming industry and Saudi Arabia’s strategic interest in building domestic digital creative capacity.
What This Accelerator Is All About
The Exel Gaming Accelerator is a structured, 13-week program designed to support early-stage and growth-stage game studios. The second cohort, hosted in Riyadh, culminated in a Demo Day where participating startups presented their companies and showcased the games developed during the program.
The accelerator goes beyond basic funding. It provides end-to-end support covering product decision-making, publishing readiness, and commercial execution.
Throughout the program, startups worked closely with an in-house team of globally experienced specialists who guided them in refining gameplay mechanics, improving user experience, and strengthening go-to-market strategies.
Importantly, the Demo Day served as both a milestone and a launchpad, giving founders exposure to investors and industry stakeholders while validating their progress over the 13-week journey.
Inside the $5.1 Million Investment
The $5.1 million investment awarded to 17 startups was deployed through the Merak Gaming Fund as part of the Exel Gaming Accelerator framework.
Rather than being a one-off grant, the funding represents a strategic capital injection aimed at enabling studios to scale operations, enhance production capabilities, and accelerate market entry.
By distributing funding across multiple startups, Exel by Merak is diversifying risk while broadening its impact across the ecosystem. The collective investment approach also signals confidence in the depth of emerging gaming talent within Saudi Arabia.
This funding milestone reinforces the accelerator’s role as both a capability-building platform and a financial catalyst for the Kingdom’s game development sector.
Mentorship and Global Industry Integration
A defining feature of Cohort 2 was its access to global expertise. The program engaged 18 internationally experienced mentors who worked end-to-end with participating studios.
These mentors provided practical insights spanning creative design, technical development, publishing strategy, monetization models, and international market positioning.
In parallel, senior practitioners from across the global gaming industry contributed additional guidance, ensuring that participating startups were exposed to global standards and best practices.
This layered mentorship model strengthened not just the games being built, but also the entrepreneurial maturity of the founders themselves.
The involvement of globally experienced specialists and mentors signals an intentional effort to bridge Saudi Arabia’s emerging gaming ecosystem with established international markets.
Strengthening Saudi Arabia’s Gaming Ecosystem
Beyond individual startup success stories, the broader objective of Exel by Merak’s accelerator is ecosystem development. By backing local studios, nurturing talent, and facilitating access to capital and expertise, the program contributes to building a sustainable game development pipeline within Saudi Arabia.
The initiative aligns with the Kingdom’s ambition to diversify its economy, expand its digital entertainment sector, and foster homegrown innovation capacity.
By supporting founders “as they build and scale game development capabilities within Saudi Arabia,” as Sedrani emphasized, Exel is helping transform gaming from a consumer market into a production hub.
As the second cohort concludes, the $5.1 million investment stands not merely as a funding announcement, but as a strategic sign, that Saudi Arabia’s gaming industry is moving from aspiration to execution, backed by structured capital, institutional support, and global integration.
Talking Points
The $5.1 million deployment by Exel by Merak, a subsidiary of Merak Capital, into 17 gaming startups reflects a strategically structured but carefully calibrated ecosystem-building effort rather than a headline-grabbing capital splash.
While the aggregate figure signals institutional confidence in Saudi Arabia’s gaming ambitions, the average ticket size suggests this is early-stage catalytic capital designed to de-risk experimentation, validate business models, and accelerate production maturity rather than fuel large-scale studio expansion.
The true differentiator lies less in the funding quantum and more in the architecture of support, 13 weeks of product refinement, publishing readiness, commercial strategy development, and access to 18 global mentors.
However, the long-term impact will hinge on post-accelerator continuity, follow-on funding pathways, international distribution partnerships, and the startups’ ability to compete in a brutally saturated global gaming market.
Without sustained capital depth and global market integration, accelerator-backed momentum can plateau. That said, if the Merak Gaming Fund maintains disciplined portfolio support and connects studios to scalable publishing ecosystems.
This initiative could evolve from a symbolic ecosystem gesture into a foundational pillar of Saudi Arabia’s digital creative economy.
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