Welcome back to your weekly journey through the MENA startup landscape! This week we are bringing you the latest news, trends and opportunities from across the region

Let’s get started!

Fundraising Roulette

Lean Technologies (KSA) raised $67.5M in Series B

Aramco Ventures (KSA) led $21.7M Andium Series B

ewpartners (KSA) invested $50M in Leshines

Edafa VC (KSA) invested in Taskedin (Egypt)

Mush Social (KSA) secured $1.2M pre-Seed round

Shorooq (UAE) led Corgea’s $2.6M seed round

CE-Ventures (UAE) co-led CrossBridge $10M round

Teradix (Egypt) won $140K grant from TAQADAM (KSA)

Main Headlines

Arzan VC (Kuwait) launched Revenya Capital to back MENA startups

SVC (KSA) committed $20M to BECO Capital’s fund

UAE unveiled National Investment Strategy 2031

BlueFive Capital (UAE) launched a $1B fund

UAE to Invest AED 200B for Sustainable Energy Transition by 2030

Ibtikar Fund (Palestine) closed $25 million fund

Trendyol planting $2bn Gulf investment

Biban24

Biban24 concluded with a total of 35.4B riyals worth of deals and agreements

Life Ventures Capital Fund launched

65 startups received investments

numu Angels invested in Jusoor Labs, RoomHour and Morashid

38 entrepreneurs from 14 nationalities granted premium residency

Full list of startups who won in the Entrepreneurship World Cup 2024

Ecosystem Updates

FasterCapital (UAE) Launched global initiative to fund EV startups

T-Vencubator (Egypt) launched Tafweela venture-building project

Egypt Ventures launched Corporate Partnership Initiative

Entlaq (Egypt) published a report on the potential of Egyptian Agri-Tech

Umm Al Qaiwain Free Zone (UAE) launched SOUL startup launchpad

The Collective Hub (Bahrian) partnered with Zoho

JOIN Fincubator (Jordan) wrapped up their second cohort

Startup Highlights

Dardasha (UAE) won the She’s Next in Publishing award

Takalam (UAE) partnered with Inception

Mismar (KSA) won the Entrepreneurship World Cup at Biban24

HALA Payments (KSA) joined Saudi Unicorns Program

Airport Innovation Days winners announced in Jordan

Six Lebanese startups awarded in the LIRA 17 Program

Open For Application

SCALE7 Hackathon | Qatar

EBRD Star Venture Program | Lebanon

GIL2024 Entrepreneurship Track | Lebanon

Athar ClimateTech Accelerator | Egypt

mySTARTUP Incubator | Morocco

InnovAIHackathon | Morocco

BRAIN 4.0 | Africa

Cool Events This Week

• MENAKH Climate Forum | 11/11 Cairo

• C3 Impact Accelerator Demo Day | 11/11 Virtual

• A World of Possibilities | 11/11 Cairo

• Dubai International Content Market | 12/11 Dubai

• Investor Day @DIFC | 12/11 Dubai

• AiSalon November| 13/11 Cairo

• VC Spotlight @Hub71 | 13/11 Abu Dhabi

• Navigating Taxation in Saudi Arabia | 14/11 Virtual

• Media Entrepreneurs Forum | 15/11 Doha

• Gladiator Summit | 16/11 Dubai

• Startup Day by Berytech | 17/11 Lebanon

Techy Bytes

Saudi government plans $100B AI and data infrastructure group

Microsoft to upskill 1M UAE residents in AI by 2027

VentureOne (UAE) launched SteerAI for autonomous vehicles

ADNOC (UAE) launched EnergyAI

OpenAI acquired Chat.com

Nvidia became the world’s largest company