Khobar, Saudi Arabia – 25th November, 2025 – Strataphy, a deep-tech company redefining how the world cools AI and industrial infrastructure, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Outliers VC and joined by Shorooq, with participation from PlusVC (+VC).
The company will use the new funding to advance its technology, expand its full-service stack, and grow its engineering and operations teams to support new deployments across giga-projects, industrial facilities, and hyperscale data centers in MENA and beyond.
Cooling has quietly become the biggest constraint on hyperscale expansion and industrial growth, especially in hot-climate regions, where it already consumes nearly 50% of total electricity use across sectors. The pressure is most acute in the Middle East, home to one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing cooling markets at $120+ billion annually, including $13 billion in Saudi Arabia alone.
Strataphy’s platform, powered by its proprietary PrimeLoop™ subsurface technology, provides a fundamentally new approach: leveraging deep, stable thermal energy to cool infrastructure with drastically lower power requirements. The system enables industrial and commercial facilities, including data centers, to cut energy intensity, reduce operating costs, and meet surging cooling demand.
Speaking on the fundraise announcement, Dr. Ammar Alali, co-founder and CEO of Strataphy said, “AI and industrial infrastructure are scaling faster than the systems that keep them cool and efficient. In AI hardware, cooling has quietly outpaced semiconductors, servers, and even data centers as the largest driver of net-new hardware spending since 2022. Our mission is to build the backbone for next-generation cooling, scalable, reliable, and cost-efficient. This investment will accelerate our technology, expand our team, and enable us to meet the surging demand across the region and beyond.”
Dr. Ammar Alali, who holds a PhD in Earth Sciences and Energy Systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), co-founded Strataphy with Ahmed Alhani. Ammar and Ahmed have worked together for over 15 years at Saudi Aramco and other ventures, leading projects in subsurface exploration, geothermal systems, and energy optimization. This shared experience is the foundation of PrimeLoop, Strataphy’s proprietary subsurface cooling technology, purpose-built for high-temperature regions with dominant cooling needs, engineered to overcome the limitations of conventional geothermal systems originally designed for heating in colder climates.
Strataphy’s clients and partners include NEOM, King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Tabreed, Enersol, ADNOC Drilling, and Alpha Dhabi Holdings, among others, across the region. These deployments highlight the rising demand for scalable, efficient cooling solutions in high-temperature environments. Strataphy’s Cooling-as-a-Service model shifts geothermal cooling from a capital expense to a predictable operating cost, allowing organizations to deploy advanced systems with minimal upfront investment while reducing long-term energy consumption and improving reliability.
Strataphy has successfully demonstrated PrimeLoop in commercial settings and documented electricity cost reductions of up to 49% compared to conventional cooling systems, proving its ability to deliver efficient, reliable, and scalable cooling in some of the world’s hottest environments.
Mohammed Almeshekah, Founder and General Partner at Outliers VC shared, “Cooling remains one of the most overlooked opportunities in the region’s broader infrastructure transformation. As demand accelerates and AI adds further pressure, efficient and scalable cooling is becoming essential for sustained growth. Strataphy’s subsurface powered approach delivers a step change in reliability and energy use. We are backing the team because they are rethinking the infrastructure that will shape the region’s next decade of progress.”
Shane Shin, Founding Partner at Shorooq, concluded, “Cooling infrastructure is the hidden backbone of the AI and industrial revolution. What Strataphy is building isn’t just a better system, it’s a fundamental rethinking of how energy, environment, and infrastructure intersect in hot-climate economies. Their ability to turn subsurface cooling into a scalable service unlocks an entirely new layer of sustainability and performance for the region. We’re backing Strataphy because they’re not just solving for heat, they’re enabling the infrastructure that will power the next decade of innovation.”
About Strataphy
Strataphy is a deep-tech company pioneering subsurface-powered cooling for large-scale infrastructure. Founded by Dr. Ammar Alali and Ahmed Alhani, Strataphy develops and operates proprietary geothermal cooling systems that reduce energy consumption and cost for data centers, giga-projects, and cities. Its Cooling-as-a-Service model allows clients to adopt the technology with no upfront investment.
About Outliers VC
Outliers is an early-stage investment firm backing outlier founders in MENA. We are an operator-led firm, partnering with the entrepreneurs shaping the region’s tech and business landscape. We work with founders who build different, uncovering category-defining opportunities that create outsized outcomes.
About Shorooq
Founded in 2017, Shorooq is the leading alternative investment manager across the Middle East and North Africa regions. The firm’s venture capital and private credit funds invest in the most innovative technology companies, with deep sectoral expertise in Fintech, Platforms, Software, AI, and
Deeptech. Shorooq is a pan-regional firm with direct and indirect presence across Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh, Egypt, and Korea. Shorooq refers to a group of companies that are affiliates of each other and which operate under this business name, of which Shorooq Partners Ltd (regulated by the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority, FSRA FSP: 190004 as a category 3C Fund Manager) is a member.
