Sawt Raises $1M to Revolutionise MENA Customer Service with AI Voice Tech

Malaz Madani

Last updated 28-07-2025

4 min

Sawt, a Saudi startup, secured $1 million in pre-seed funding for its AI voice call systems.

Their tech aims to revolutionise customer service with natural-sounding AI, enhancing efficiency.

Sawt's rapid growth has seen it handle thousands of calls a month since launching.

Backed by T2 and STV, its AI solutions target the GCC market's call centre automation.

Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 bolsters Sawt's local-first approach, aligning with national AI goals.

There’s nothing quite like ringing a company’s customer service hotline and being left dangling on hold – endless minutes of hold music, exasperating menus and, when you finally get through, agents who sound more frazzled than you feel. In fact, I reckon most startups across the MENA region have faced this headache one way or another. That’s why what’s brewing at Saudi-based Sawt caught my eye (and honestly, had me a bit chuffed to bits).

Sawt, a young startup specialising in AI-powered voice call systems, has just clinched a $1 million pre-seed round backed by T2 and STV – two heavyweight supporters in the regional tech ecosystem. The team isn’t messing about: they’re on a mission to give the whole customer support experience a proper shake-up, building Arabic-first AI models from scratch with a laser focus on privacy and enterprise-grade data protection.

The beef? Call centres in our region have a bit of a rep for being, well… a faff. Slow, repetitive, and pricey to run, all without adding much value for the customer or the business. Sawt’s founders asked the obvious question: why not reinvent the call itself? Instead of burning out overworked agents, their platform leans on AI agents that sound natural, know their onions, and – best of all – never ask for a lunch break.

It’s early days, but Sawt’s natural-sounding Arabic voice tech has already served up hundreds of thousands of calls for dozens of businesses, all inside just two months of launching. If you ask me, that’s a proper sprint in the world of startups.

T2’s CEO, Abdulkarim Aljarba, commented that Sawt’s platform will help their clients tap into advanced capabilities – a move perfectly matching T2’s strategy to deliver next-level tech solutions. STV, on the other hand, has their fingers all over the pulse of AI in our region; General Partner Ahmad Al Naimi reckons Sawt could lead the GCC market for AI-driven call centre automation, which is tipped to be worth anywhere between $800 million and $1.2 billion. Those aren’t numbers to sneeze at.

What’s more, with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 pumping a massive push towards data and AI (apparently, 66 out of 96 national goals are linked to these fields), Sawt’s local-first approach seems spot on. Co-founder and CEO Abdulmalik Al-Saeed made it clear that he takes pride in building something for the region, in the region, and he’s equally pleased to have such strong partners by their side.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing – assembling cutting-edge AI in Arabic, with all its dialectical quirks, is enough to send most developers running for the hills. On the flip side, the result is a system that actually understands customers’ needs, while respecting data privacy — something I’ve often found sorely lacking. The fresh round of funding will power up Sawt’s team, boost their infrastructure, and refine their core AI so it can handle millions of calls reliably (and hopefully with less of the old hold music).

What do I make of all this? Honestly, as someone who’s spent years trying to root for regional startups on Arageek, projects like Sawt feel like a genuine leap forward. There’s a demo video making the rounds online, so those who are curious can check it out for themselves on X or LinkedIn, and maybe even give the AI a try. I’m not a fan of queuing on the phone, so fingers crossed this marks the start of a much-needed shift, not just for Saudi Arabia but across the region. We could all do with customer service that actually serves, not stumbles.

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