Abdulaziz Al-Adwani is a young Saudi entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Manafa Capital. 

Established in 2016 in Saudi Arabia’s capital city, Manafa Capital is the first authorized crowdfunding platform of the country.

As the chief of the firm, Al-Adwani develops business plans, forecasts and identifies market opportunities and products.

Before launching Manafa Capital, Al-Adwani was a managing partner at Ertyad Training and Consulting. His responsibilities included providing strategic financial planning advice and designing future business plans for the company.

Ertyad Training and Consulting is a multi-industry group of companies. It offers leadership training and IT-specific skill enhancement training to companies of all sizes to enable them to create a more confident, empowered, inspired and enthusiastic workforce.

Al-Adwani holds a master’s degree in public administration from Riyadh’s King Saud University.  He has participated in various conferences representing young Saudi entrepreneurs. He has also delivered workshops in cooperation with institutions devoted to supporting small and medium enterprises. 

King Abdul Aziz University’s Center of Creativity and Entrepreneurship held a forum last week to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW).

Al-Adwani was the main speaker at the forum. He said the World Bank report had estimated crowdfunding in the Kingdom would soon rise to SR4 billion ($1.07 billion) in the next few years. 

“Individual investors in Saudi Arabia have the capability and desire to invest in small businesses,” he said.

Al-Adwani highlighted the Alibaba Group’s growth from its entrepreneurial beginnings to a giant e-commerce company.

“At first, 200 investors refused to invest in Alibaba. If those investors knew what it would become, they would not have hesitated to fund it,” he said.