Barbara raises €4.5M Strategic Funding Round led by Aramco Ventures to accelerate global expansion across Europe, Middle East, and US

Barbara announces a new strategic investment round led by Aramco Ventures to accelerate its global expansion across Europe, the Middle East and the United States. Building on strong execution in Energy, Utilities and Manufacturing, the company will scale its Edge AI platform further into Oil & Gas and other demanding industrial sectors, reinforcing its position as a global leader in industrial #EdgeAI.

Press

Bilbao, Spain  –  February 18th , 2026 – Barbara, a provider of industrial Edge AI software, today announced the closing of a €4.5 million strategic financing round led by Aramco Ventures, the venture capital arm of Aramco. The round also includes participation from existing investors Criteria Venture Tech and Iberdrola, and will support Barbara’s expansion and execution in the rapidly growing global market for Edge AI.

Building on Barbara’s strong foundation in Energy and Utilities, the strategic partnership with Aramco Ventures is expected to accelerate Barbara’s expansion into the Oil & Gas sector, where the company is already running ongoing pilots and addressing similarly complex industrial requirements at scale. The investment reflects a strong strategic and technological alignment between Barbara’s Edge AI platform and the needs of large-scale oil and gas operations, where real-time intelligence, low-latency processing, and on-site decision-making are increasingly critical.

Proceeds from the round will be used to accelerate go-to-market execution across the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, with a focus on scaling enterprise deployments in Energy, Utilities, Manufacturing, and Oil & Gas. Barbara’s expansion strategy is centered on enabling faster adoption through its growing ecosystem of global technology and integration partners.

Over the past period, Barbara has achieved significant milestones that underpin this next phase of growth. Barbara works with over 90 global partners, including leading system integrators, software providers, and hardware manufacturers.

This partner network allows Barbara to deliver complete Edge AI projects worldwide; from setting up the infrastructure, to deploying solutions on-site, and operating and maintaining them over time. Through this partner-led model, Barbara supports industrial customers across complex and distributed environments and has expanded its commercial footprint to customers in more than 12 countries.

"We have demonstrated strong execution in the Energy, Utilities, and Manufacturing sectors, and this round allows us to take the next step in scaling our technology into Oil & Gas,” said David Puron, CEO of Barbara. “Having Aramco Ventures lead this round is a powerful validation of our approach and accelerates our ability to support some of the most demanding industrial environments globally."
 Barbara has built a robust Edge AI platform designed for real-time decision-making in complex industrial environments. As industrial operations increasingly require intelligence closer to the asset, we see strong alignment between Barbara’s technology and the needs of large-scale energy and industrial systems,” said Zayed Alamri, Executive Managing Director, Aramco Ventures, “This investment supports Barbara’s next phase of growth as it scales deployments across key global markets”.

With this financing, Barbara will continue to strengthen its commercial capabilities, expand strategic relationships across key regions, and accelerate industrial deployments, reinforcing its position as a global leader in Edge AI software for industrial environments.

About Barbara

Barbara is a technology company specializing in industrial Edge AI software. Its platform enables enterprises to deploy, manage, and scale AI-driven applications directly at the edge, supporting real-time operations across energy utilities, manufacturing, and oil & gas industries.

For more information, visit www.barbara.tech.

PR and Marketing enquiries: marketing@barbara.tech

About Aramco Ventures

Aramco Ventures is the venture capital arm of Aramco, a world’s leading fully integrated energy and chemical enterprise. Headquartered in Dhahran with offices in North America, Europe and Asia, Aramco Ventures’ strategic venturing programs invest globally in start-up and high growth companies with technologies of strategic importance to its parent company, Aramco, primarily supporting its operational decarbonization, new lower-carbon fuels businesses, and digital transformation initiatives. Aramco Ventures also operates Prosperity7, the company’s disruptive technologies investment program. 

For more information, please visit www.aramcoventures.com