Welcome back to your go-to source for the latest in MENA's vibrant startup ecosystem! This week, we're covering exciting new funding rounds, major industry updates, and the latest tech innovations.

Yalla, let’s go!

Weekly Funding Roundup

• Property Finder (UAE) raises $90m, marking Beco Capital's second billion-dollar exit

• Eyewa (UAE) raises funds from General Atlantic

• Airwater (UAE) secures investment from Tau Capital

• Keyper (UAE) raises $4m

• Revent (UAE) raises $900k

• Brinc Acquires Callmi (UAE)

• Plug and Play invests in Fincart (Egypt)

• RedBird (UAE) acquires UK TV producer for $1.5bn

• Flat6Labs backs SARsatX (KSA)

• MDD (KSA) completes investment round

• SVC (KSA) invests $30m in a General Atlantic fund

In The News

• THA and Qatar Financial Centre launch a $50m Digital Assets Venture Studio

• BRICS Investment Fund launches $100m AI fund in UAE

• Golden Gate Ventures MENA fund secures $100m from Qatar's investors

• Middle East investors invest in $920m Patron Capital Fund

• Investcorp (Bahrain) closes a $570m ITP V fund

• Wadi Jeddah launches a new fund

• Riyad Capital introduces the 1957 Ventures Fund

• Shorooq Partners launches a $100m fund and plans two Fintech investments

• PIF exits Amazon, Microsoft, and Starbucks stakes cutting $15B in US stocks

Upcoming Programs & Opportunities

• PropteX Program by Paragon and Startup Factory

• The Digital Entrepreneurship Program (DEP) by Forward Inc

• Web3 Accelerator Program by Startup Wise Guys

• Startups AI Accelerator Africa by Google

• Startupper of the Year Challenge by TotalEnergies

• Women in Tech Program by Standard Chartered

• TiE Women MENA Pitch Day by TiE Dubai

• Women in Tech Startup Competition by UN Tourism

• Orange Social Venture Prize by Orange

• The Tank Innovation Challenge by Umniah

Cool Events

• Global Prompt Engineering Championship - 20 May, Dubai

• Finnovex Saudi Arabia 2024 - 21 May, Riyadh

• Soft Landing Mastery Masterclass by Orange Corners Palestine - 21 May, Zoom

• Orange Corners Palestine Demo Day - 22 M Mayay, Zoom

• Liquidity is king: IPOs, exits, and secondaries by Magnitt- 22 May, Zoom

• Kickstart Bahrain EdTech Demo Day - 30 May, Zoom

• Vodafone's AI Assistive Tools Hackathon - 30 May, Cairo

Interesting Stuff

• UAE Introduces Blue Residency for Sustainability Experts

• Nearly 60% of GCC’s fintech firms are based in Dubai

• Are AI Agents the Next Big Thing in Tech?

• Saudi Space Center to support the lunar mission

• EZDubai releases fourth e-commerce report

• Top digital payments trends in MENA

• Tamer Azer from Shorooq Partners on the alternative VC path in MENA

Techy Bytes

• UAE unveils Falcon 2 AI model to compete with Meta and OpenAI

• Abu Dhabi to launch the Global AI Healthcare Academy

• Core42 (UAE) launches Jais Chat, an Arabic-English AI chatbot

• Wink Pay launches in Lebanon

• Sama Licenses Hala (KSA) Crowdfunding Solutions

• OpenAI debuts GPT-4o model, plans to compete with Google search, and partners with Reddit to train AI

• 100 things Google announced at I/O 2024