Hello and welcome back awesome MENA founders! This week we are bringing you the latest news, trends, and opportunities from across the region

Let’s get started!

Fundraising Roulette

ORO Labs (UAE/Fintech) raised a $1.5M pre-seed funding round

PlaysOut (UAE/Gametech) raised a $7M round

ClearGrid (UAE/Fintech) raised a $10M dual round

Nymcard (UAE/Fintech) raised a $33M Series B round

Vista (UAE/Private Jet) secured a $600M investment

Nayla (KSA/Fintech) raised a $4M seed funding round

MDAK (KSA/Proptech) raised a $10M seed funding round

MENA Analytics (Palestine/Analytics) raised an undisclosed round

Grinta (Egypt/Marketplace) raised an undisclosed round and acquired Citi Clinic

Juridoc (Tunisia/Legaltech) raised an undisclosed round

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority joined a $200M round for Lila Sciences (USA)

Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) invested in Latigo (USA)

Hassana (KSA) acquired a 40% stake in Berain Water

InCred Group acquired Arrow Capital DIFC to expand its footprint in the Middle East

Main Headlines

UAE to commit to $1.4 trillion in US investment over 10 years

Yango Group (UAE) launched a $20M venture fund to support early-stage startups

Morocco launched its first Venture Studio to support innovation and entrepreneurship

Dubai moving to formalize real estate tokenization

Aramco launched its first carbon capture facility

Muscat Stock Exchange set to launch the Promising Companies Market

Morocco expanded its electronic business creation platform nationwide

Aman backed by PIF and Mubadala, seeks to raise $2B

Ecosystem Updates

Hack for Syria concluded with a closing ceremony at the Damascus Opera House

TIEC announced the startups joining the Creativa Incubation Program in Egypt

Riyadh Holding launched an innovation center to support Foodtech startups

Sharjah Media launched a new service to empower entrepreneurs

University of Dubai launched the third edition of its Entrepreneurship Competition

Club des Managers launched a new social network to support entrepreneurship in Morocco

Egypt’s Ministry of Trade and Industry launched Investor Support to facilitate investor complaints and inquiries

Flow announced the selected incubatees for the PIEC Program in Palestine

Diane Foundation honored eight pioneering women in green entrepreneurship in Lebanon

Changelabs published the Egypt Fintech for a Future Impact Report

Startup Highlights

Tern Rewards launched the first digital platform in the UAE for rent payments

DataQueue joined the Palestine Monetary Authority’s regulatory sandbox

HyperPay launched its Tap-on-Phone payment solution in the UAE

Fawry partnered with Contact to broaden BNPL services in Egypt. Meanwhile, its branch in Giza was robbed of approximately 4 million EGP

Green Watch (Morocco) secured the second-place prize of 250,000 in Africa’s Business Heroes competition

Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority granted licenses to MNT-Hala, Bokra, Fawry, mylo, Telda, Thndr, and Beltone

Saudi Arabia’s Capital Market Authority approved five more IPOs

Open For Application

IdeaLab Program | Lebanon

JOIN Fincubator Incubation Program | Jordan

Mashroo3i Program | Bahrain

StartUp Weekend 4 | Bahrain

University of Dubai’s Pitch Competition | UAE

Presight AI-Startup Accelerator | UAE

MBRIF Innovation Accelerator Cohort 10 | UAE

Sunbolah Food Tech Incubator | KSA

Shell.ai Futures Pitch | Qatar

Waa’d Program | Tunisia

AI Prompt Engineering Championship | Global

Techy Bytes

Government of Abu Dhabi entered a multi-year partnership with Microsoft and Core42 to establish a sovereign cloud system

GCAA issued the first regulation for drone air navigation providers in UAE

Dubai approved Circle’s Stablecoins for use in the DIFC

Abu Dhabi launched AI training programs for school teachers

G42 and NVIDIA launched the Earth-2 Climate Tech Lab in Abu Dhabi

ADQ and ECP formed a $25 billion energy venture to power AI development in UAE

AtlasIA released smarter and faster Moroccan Darija AI models

Bahrain launched its first satellite

Algeria launched its first AI-focused high-performance computing center in Oran