We build and operate companies in the Gulf, and invest beyond it.
The Taken Seat is a Kuwait-based venture builder. We founded Carriage and sold it to Delivery Hero SE fourteen months later. Today we build, fund and run operating companies across Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and invest in technology companies beyond the Gulf.
Kuwait · Venture builder
The record, with its sources.
6 countries
Carriage was operating in six countries at exit, with 12,000 riders and more than 1,000 employees.
Company record
2017
~$200M
Total consideration including earn-outs, on approximately $1.3M raised.
Delivery Hero Annual Report
FY2017
30,000+
Machines listed on Rent Your Machine across Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Rent Your Machine
2026
14 months
From Carriage's founding in March 2016 to the Delivery Hero announcement.
Delivery Hero
29 May 2017
Three ways in.
Found & operate
We start the company, staff it, and run it until it stands on its own.
Seed & scale
We take a stake, then give the founders the shared services we already run.
Partner into the Gulf
For hardware companies entering the region: import, deploy, staff, service, report.
Built and operated.
On-demand delivery
Kuwait · BH · KSA · UAE · QA · EG
Exited 2017
Heavy and light equipment rental
Saudi Arabia · UAE
Active
Selected investments.
Beyond the Gulf, The Taken Seat invests in technology companies through special-purpose vehicles and funds.
- SpaceX
- Dataminr
- FLYR
- Truework
- Sendoso
- Mythical Games
- Kinovi
Latest
August 2026
Times Kuwait covers Ahlan Hamad's Kuwait Labour Law compliance checklist
Times Kuwait covered Ahlan Hamad's 2025 Kuwait Labour Law Compliance Checklist, a review of more than eighty obligations Kuwaiti employers carry under the labour law.
June 2026
Rent Your Machine scales across all thirteen Saudi regions
Rent Your Machine now lists more than 30,000 machines with delivery and maintenance across all thirteen regions of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, operating from offices in Riyadh and Kuwait City.
December 2023
Entrepreneur Middle East profiles Cari's zero-commission model
Entrepreneur Middle East profiled Cari, the food-delivery platform The Taken Seat launched in 2022, and the zero-commission model it was built around.