about alnilam.

Search funds are one of the most successful acquisition structures in Western private markets, yet they barely exist in the Gulf. Alnilam was founded to change that — to launch, professionalise, and prove this asset class in Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC, and to open it to investors who want real, operator-led exposure to the region.

Our practice is Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition: a focused pool of capital, a deliberate search, the acquisition of one exceptional company, and hands-on operation of that company to compound its value over a long horizon. It is an approach built on conviction rather than diversification, on stewardship rather than leverage.

We begin in Saudi Arabia, where a generation of founder-led businesses is approaching succession and where domestic capital is hungry for structured, operator-led private investment. That same opportunity has been largely inaccessible to international investors — fragmented, opaque, and hard to underwrite from afar. We bridge that gap: local relationships and diligence on the ground, institutional-grade structure and governance around the deal, and a single, transparent vehicle for global capital to participate in one of the world's most consequential private markets.

This site is the home of that practice. It explains the search fund model in plain language, from its Stanford GSB origins to the economics that have made it one of the most studied acquisition structures in private markets. It publishes a daily brief on acquisition entrepreneurship in the Gulf, an academy that traces forty years of the asset class, and full detail on the firm's first vehicle, Project NAHDA, a healthcare-focused search fund now forming.

It is written for three audiences: investors seeking operator-led exposure to GCC private markets, founders and families weighing succession, and operators who want to lead a business of their own. Alnilam is built and run from Riyadh and Dubai by a team grounded in Stanford GSB and IESE search fund research.