Marriott partners with BinDawood unit on five Saudi hotels

Marriott International and BinDawood Investment’s subsidiary Al Qimmah Hospitality will develop five new hotels across Jeddah, Makkah, and Madinah, adding more than 2.7k rooms to the market, Marriott said in a press release. The projects will be rolled out under four Marriott brands — JW Marriott, Four Points by Sheraton, Element Hotels, and Four Points flex by Sheraton — marking the first entry of Four Points Flex into the Kingdom.

REMEMBER- Marriott International partnered with BinDawood subsidiaries Al Qimmah Hospitality and Amwaj Real Estate last January to build its largest Courtyard by Marriott hotel in Makkah. The hotel will feature a little under 2.2k rooms and is slated to open this year.

Governata bags seed funding to scale AI platform

Homegrown enterprise data governance startup Governata raised USD 4 mn in a seed funding round, with participation from Joa Capital, abtal, Sanabil Investments Accelerator by 500 Global, Sadu Capital, Plus VC, Hyperscope Ventures, A-Typical Ventures, and Plug and Play, co-founder Djamel Mohand said on LinkedIn. The funding will be used to accelerate product development, expand the platform across the Kingdom and the MENA region, and enhance its data management suite, including Master Data Management and AI-powered decision-making tools.

About Governata: Founded in 2025 by Khalid Almudayfir (LinkedIn), Jehad Senan (LinkedIn), and Djamel Mohand (LinkedIn), the platform supports enterprise adoption of AI, machine learning, and generative AI by reinforcing data quality, governance, and classification.

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