Hey MENA entrepreneurs! 🌙✨

Eid Mubarak! As we celebrate Eid al Adha, we're back with another edition of your ultimate guide to the latest in the MENA startup world

Let’s dive in!

Weekly Funding Roundup

• Tenderd (UAE/ConTech) secured $30 million Series A

• Augnito (UAE/AI) secured an undisclosed round

• Qstay (UAE/Hospitality) secured $4.6 million pre-Series A

• NOW Money (UAE/Fintech) raised $4 million round

• Shorooq Partners (UAE) invested in Roamless

• The Potcast Productions (Egypt/Media) secured follow-up round

• i’SUPPLY (Egypt/MedTech) secured $2.5 million

• Waves (Kuwait/TravelTech) closed an undisclosed round

• Bima بيمة (Oman/InsurTech) secured a funding round

• Orisdi (Iraq/E-commerce) landed a six-figure bridge round

• Sanabil Investments (KSA) invested in Mistral AI Series B

In The News

• Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah ranked among the top 10 startup hubs in MENA

• Polynome Group unveiled a $100M investment to boost UAE’s AI startups

• Brookfield targeting $5B for a UAE-backed climate fund

• Ruya Partners (UAE) seeking $250M

• Aramco raised $11.2B from a secondary share offering

• HSBC Bank launched a $1.5B fund to support SMEs in Egypt

• ISSF (Jordan) injected $2M into VentureSouq’s fund to boost local startups

• 17Capital expanded into the GCC

• Princeville Capital (backed by Leonardo DiCaprio) to invest $50M in MENA climate tech

Ecosystem Updates

• Khalifa Fund and Masdar City empower Emirati entrepreneurs

• Five One Labs (Iraq) to launch a new business support program

• Winners of the Agriculture Innovation Hackathon in Iraq announced

• EdVentures and Mastercard launched an EdTech fellowship in Egypt

• AUC Venture Lab (Egypt) celebrated the graduation of 24 female-led tech startups

• Nahdet El Mahrousa (Egypt) introduced the Creative Industries' Cohort

• Tamkeen (Bahrain) and Startup Genome launched comprehensive startup research

Startup Highlights

• Ceer (KSA) signed a $2bn deal to supply EV drive systems

• Aura (UAE) won the Eureka! GCC 2024 startup competition

• Lyvely (UAE) co-founder Farah Zafar won the Mastercard Women SME Leaders Awards

• Audiomatic, Socialee, and PaySky won top prizes at Entrepreneurship World Cup in UAE

• [VENU](http://VENU.AIhttps://www.venu.ai/) (Egypt) won the top prize at Rise Up summit

• Silent Power (Bahrain) won 2nd place at Creative Business Cup in Copenhagen

• Defendis (Morocco) launched an AI-powered cyber threat intelligence platform

Upcoming Programs & Opportunities

• Women Empowerment in Entrepreneurship - Palestine

• Start Your Business Bootcamp By VentureX - Jordan

• StartMashreq Incubation Track - Jordan, Iraq & Lebanon

• EME Incubation Program - Egypt

• OST Program - Morocco & Tunisia

• Ecobank Fintech Challenge - Africa

• Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Inclusion Challenge - Global

Must Attend Events This June

• DJERBA SLUSH'D - 21 June, Tunisia

• FoodHack Meetup - 24 June, Dubai

• FINNOVEX Qatar - 25 June, Doha

• Dubai AI Campus Demo Day - 26 June, Dubai

• Leaders in Fintech Awards - 27 June, Dubai

Interesting Stuff

• Digital investment opportunities in Saudi Arabia are booming

• PropTech Innovations are transforming Saudi Arabia's real estate

• PIF (KSA) is creating a billion-dollar boxing league

• Meet the 10 MENA Green Startups Revolutionizing Sustainability

• Qatar’s startup ecosystem is driving economic diversification

• Dubai businesses are flocking to Morocco

• Podcast: The incredible journey of MENA’s e-commerce pioneer Ronaldo Mouchawar

Techy Bytes

• Saudi Arabia trials unmanned air taxis for Hajj pilgrims

• ServiceNow announced the launch of a UAE Cloud

• UAE AI office partners with Samsung to advance AI adoption

• OpenAI closed in on $3.4 billion in annualized revenue

  AWS announced a $230 million commitment to generative AI startups.

• in case you missed it! Apple WWDC recap

• Meta unveiled new AI tools for WhatsApp Business

• Cringy Elon Musk declared war on Apple over ChatGPT integration