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Two S Holding to invest $2.5bn in Nano Cures global healthcare platform

Two S Holding, a part of the UAE Ruling Family's sovereign and royal wealth network, has committed to a $2.5 billion equity investment in Nano Cures International Ltd, an Abu Dhabi based global healthcare technology company.

Published: Wed 22 Feb 2023, 12:06 PM

Updated: Wed 22 Feb 2023, 12:06 PM

Nano is the developer of a technology-based, patient-centric healthcare platform which transforms the delivery of care, the development of new devices and cures, the early detection and treatment of disease, and the empowerment of individuals by placing their health information at their fingertips.

Two S Holding Sole Proprietorship LLC is the family office of Sheikha Salama bint Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, where she is their board's chairperson. Sheikha Salama is the daughter of Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, former Deputy Prime Minister of the UAE. Her family lineage traces to the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, highly regarded as the founding father of the UAE. She is the first niece of the President His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

"After thoughtful consideration and learning more about the long-term future growth strategy of Nano, and with high regards for the senior management team, the decision to support Nano with this strategic investment was clear," said Sheikha Salama. "This investment underscores our commitment to the Ministry of Health's mission to ensure proactive, interconnected, comprehensive and innovative health services based on digital data for all segments of the community. Nano's innovative technologies and data-driven platform promise to deliver on these objectives and ultimately, endow our residents as well as populations globally with more productive, healthier and longer lives."

Prior to obtaining this commitment, Nano has been largely supported by significant private investments, including those from John Paul DeJoria. DeJoria is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist and a noted signatory of the Giving Pledge. He co-founded Paul Mitchell Systems and The Patrón Spirits Company (acquired by Bacardi in 2018), among numerous other businesses. In 2008, through his support for Food4Africa, he travelled to sub-Saharan Africa to join Nelson Mandela to help feed 17,000 orphaned children.

Despite impressive advances in isolated niches of medicine, healthcare as a whole has failed us by not keeping pace with all the innovation that surrounds it. There is a quantum need for a new healthcare paradigm - a whole new platform - that brings to bear the latest in genomics, artificial intelligence, big data, and connectivity, and that plugs seamlessly into today's always-on world. This is the promise of Nano, and that's why DeJoria and other key investors are committed to their success.

Nano and Arm, the world's leading semi-conductor design company, previously announced their collaboration on new chip technology for portable devices that detect air-, surface- and blood-borne pathogens by using artificial intelligence to analyse biometric, chemical and genomic signatures.

The Al Nahyan family are also shareholders of Arm Holdings via Mubadala's landmark investment in the Softbank Vision Fund. Arm plans to be taken through public offering in the US later this year.

"Our mission is perfectly aligned with the healthcare goals of the UAE. We look forward to closing this investment with Two S Holding to accelerate the global and regional deployment of the Nano Cures platform and technology," said Steven G Papermaster, chairman and CEO of Nano. "This capital infusion also makes Nano an important part of Arm's growth plans as they prepare for an IPO later this year."

Two S's capital commitment is being facilitated by UAE-based Opulence Capital Management (OCM), which for years has shepherded numerous large-scale projects in the Middle East and has supported Nano's initial growth and development in the region.

Alexander Vanderhey, chairman of OCM, said: "This incredible opportunity to redesign the very fabric of healthcare was clear to us from the beginning. Through this transaction, we celebrate the continued validation and proliferation of the Nano Cures platform across the region. OCM has followed in the great footsteps of network partners in the UAE's sovereign and royal wealth including Two S Holding, Mubadala, ADIA, ADQ and others carrying out the mandate to transform the UAE and to make the Middle East a global technology leader. On the heels of the President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan's ascension to the presidency of the UAE, we look forward to advancing the UAE's goals through investments in synergistic technologies that will bring value to the UAE and global healthcare."