Welcome back to your weekly journey through the MENA startup landscape!

It’s been an action-packed week in the MENA startup world. From exciting funding rounds to major events taking place in Dubai, there’s a lot happening.

Let’s get started!

Fundraising Roulette

Perfect Vision (KSA/IoT) raised $20M convertible note

Abhi (UAE/Fintech) raised $15M in debt financing

Mala (KSA/Fintech) raised $7M pre-seed

UMX Studio (KSA/Gaming) raised $4.5M Series F

Rabbit (Egypt/Mobility) raised $1.3M round

DHARMA (UAE/Traveltech) raised $750K convertible note

JARAS (KSA/Hospitality) raised $666k pre-seed

Agenz (Morocco/Proptech) raised undisclosed round

WellPal (Egypt/Healthtech) raised undisclosed round and relocated to Saudi Arabia

3 Startups raised EGP97.5M in the first episode of Shark Tank Egypt

Main Headlines

GITEX concluded the world’s largest tech event with over 6,500 exhibitors, 1,800 startups, and 1,200 investors from more than 180 countries

Expand North Star also concluded featuring +2000 startups from over 100 countries, including 350 European ones and 65 unicorns with a combined market value +US$400B

SVC Invested $15M in Vision Ventures fund

Moonbase Capital launched $15M emerging markets fund

Tawaref acquired Amaana.ai

Hope Ventures went public on the Bahrain bourse

SAMA issued updated rules debt-based crowdfunding

Ecosystem Updates

Dubai Chamber launched Dubai Startup Guide

SPARK launched Maharat for Tourism program in Saudi Arabia

SBWC showcased women entrepreneurs at Expand North Star

in5 Dubai start-up funding reached AED 8 billion

Edafa VC to expand in Egypt and the Gulf

Flat6Lab concluded 2nd edition of Women’s Health Accelerator

Presight launched accelerator for early-stage AI startups

Startup Highlights

Six teams won Fintech Rally 2024 in Jordan

EZRA3LY (Egypt) won first place in the Arab FinTech Challenge at GITEX

Swvl (Egypt/Mobility) launched regional HQ in Riyadh and removed its B2C services

Takalam (UAE) partnered with Inception

Hayat (Bahrain) won Mastercard Challenge in Jordan

Sarwa (UAE/Fintech) to launch options trading

Open For Application

Abu Dhabi Youth Challenge+ | UAE

TradeTech Accelerator | UAE

Intilaaqah Incubation Program | Egypt

InvestIT Program | Egypt

Green & Sustainability Hackathon | Jordan

Peleset Angels Start-Up Accelerator | Virtual

Cool Events This Week

• Global Health Exhibition | 21-10 Riyadh

• The Entrepreneur's Guide to Effective Deal-Making | 22-10 Virtual

• GenAI in Finance | 23-10 Dubai

• Driving Growth for Women-Led SMEs | 24-10 Dubai

• Saudi Cybersecurity Essentials | 24-10 Virtual

• Digital Marketing Workshop | 24-10 Manama

• Viaka MENA Startups Pitch US VCs | 24-10 Virtual

• Builders Summit 2024 | 24-10 Riyadh

• Endeavor Fintech Forward 2024 | 26-10 Riyadh

• Al Sharq Youth 8th International Conference | 26-10 Gaziantep

Techy Bytes

First UAE-Dirham backed Stablecoin launched

Amazon AWS invested $1 billion into the UAE to accelerate cloud adoption

Microsoft revealed UAE AI National Skills initiative

Presight launched Intelli platform

Tarjama& launched Pronoia LLM for business Arabic translation

Bahrain FinTech Bay launched MENA Innovation Academy

DOO unveiled Bahrain’s first AI-powered customer service