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

Eyewa (UAE/D2C) raised $100M series C

Cipher (KSA/Cybersecurity) raised $13.3M

Aanaab (KSA/Edtech) raised $7M Series A

Koora Break (KSA/Sportech) raised a round from The Ferdinand Group (UK)

Wathiq (KSA/Logistics) raised undisclosed angel round

Flat6Labs invested in 10 Saudi startups $133k each

Fascano (Oman/Food delivery) raised a second funding round

Daher Investments (UAE) invested in Reactiv (Canada/AI)

Emirates NBD and Mashreq Bank invested in NewBridge (UK/Fintech)

Mawdoo3 (Jordan/Blog) raised undisclosed round

Eduba (Iraq/Edtech) got acquired

Sylndr (Egypt/used cars marketplace) raised $7.45M

Nowlun.com (Egypt/Logistics) raised $1.7M

PTS (Morocco/Fintech) raised $500k

Main Headlines

Aramco (KSA) to invest $1B in Mavenir (USA)

Mubadala (UAE) to acquire CI Financial (Canada) for $8.7B

Qatar Investment Authority to participate in a $5B round for Elon Musk’s xAI

Oman issued its National Intellectual Property Strategy

Innovative Startups & SMEs Fund (Jordan) committed $5M to Saqr Fund II

Arab African International Bank raised $500M to fund green and energy-efficient projects in Egypt

Ecosystem Updates

Shorooq (UAE) contributed AED 50M to 1 Billion Pitches competition

Bedayat and Dubai SME selected 20 Emirati startups for its programs

MBRIF (UAE) partnered with Wio Bank

DMCC (UAE) partnered with Brinc and concluded the 2nd edition of Web3 hackathon

Dubai Chambers partnered with Standard Chartered

Outlier Ventures announced the 10 teams in The FutureSpark Base Camp cohort in Saudi

Bahrain Fintech Bay published the FinTech Sector Skills Report 2024

Tamkeen launched executive leadership training initiative in Bahrain

Jusoor wrapped up Disruptors program with three winners in Amman

Startup Highlights

Talabat will increase share offerings to 20% after strong demand

Parkonic (UAE/AI) partnered with Salik

Botim integrated UAE lottery inside the app

Business Cup Challenge 2024 winners announced in UAE

Kitchenara (KSA) is hiring for multiple positions

MyFatoorah (Kuwait) partnered with Mastercard Gateway

Female entrepreneurs shined with unique ideas in Shark Tank Dubai

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris launched Moniify

Open For Application

Riyada Tech Startup Accelerator | Bahrain

AI in Fintech Course from UC Berkeley | Online & In-Person - Bahrain

Exhibit at Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival | UAE

REAF Ideathon | Lebanon

Visa Accelerator Program | Africa

Green FinTech Innovation Challenge | Global

Cool Events This Week

• Mena Fintech Festival | 03.12 Doha

• Internet 2.0 Conference | 03-05.12 Dubai

• Future Sustainability Forum | 04-05.12 Dubai

• AI & GenAI Strategies to Deliver Customer Experience Excellence | 04.12 Riyadh

• WORLDEF | 04.12 Dubai

• Abu Dhabi Business week | 04-06.12 Abu Dhabi

• Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit | 05.12 Dubai

• Expanding to Saudi Arabia: 2024 Insights & Common Pitfalls | 05.12 Virtual

• Growth via Marketing: Target Audience and Marketing Match | 05.12 Dubai

• Pitch Perfect: Building Stronger Business Through Communication | 06.12 Abu Dhabi

• IGNITE Amman Conference | 08.12 Amman

• Qatar Tech Startup Community Awards | 08.12 Doha

Techy Bytes

UAE ranked among top 5 AI ecosystems in the world

Artificial Intelligence Office launched 5000 Digital Talent initiative in UAE

American University in Dubai launched Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence

Morocco to create dedicated body to tackle AI's social impacts

Egypt launched innovative digital Filter to reconstruct damaged ancient artifacts

Meta to build a $10B subsea cable spanning the world

Australia approved law banning social media for under 16s

Alibaba released an open-source challenger to OpenAI’s o1

Snap launched offices in Saudi Arabia

Canadian news companies sued OpenAI