Latest
News
+2
Mar 13, 2026
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2 min read
Egyptian martech startup Converted acquires fashion e-commerce platform Mitcha
Mitcha's network of more than 300 local fashion designers will be integrated into Converted's AI-powered advertising platform, which serves thousands of merchants across Egypt and Saudi Arabia and is launching a new product that ties ad spend directly to verified sales rather than clicks.
Morocco
+4
Mar 13, 2026
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3 min read
inDrive acquires Pakistan's Krave Mart as the ride-hailing app pushes deeper into quick commerce
The all-stock deal, first agreed last year, has been approved by Pakistan's Competition Commission. inDrive is already the most downloaded ride-hailing app in Pakistan, Egypt, and Morocco, and has been scaling grocery delivery in the country since January through a partnership with Krave Mart.
News
+3
Mar 12, 2026
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3 min read
Shorooq joins $1B seed round in Yann LeCun's AMI Labs, one of the largest AI seed financings ever, at a $3.5B pre-money valuation
The Abu Dhabi-based firm invested alongside Bezos Expeditions, Temasek, and NVIDIA, in the Paris-headquartered startup, which is building "world model" AI systems designed to reason about physical environments rather than just predict text.
Jordan
+4
Mar 12, 2026
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3 min read
Jordanian founder Amjad Masad's Replit triples valuation to $9B, as it targets $1B in ARR by year-end
The AI developer platform, founded in 2016 by Masad alongside Faris Masad and Haya Odeh, has raised a $400M Series D led by Georgian, with Qatar's QIA among the backers.
Analysis
+1
Mar 6, 2026
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14 min read
Inside the AWS outage that took down UAE fintechs
Drone strikes knocked out two of AWS's three UAE data centres, taking Sarwa, Abhi, and a dozen other platforms offline. FWDstart spoke to the CEOs steering two of those companies through the crisis to find out what it actually looked like from inside the building.
Analysis
+2
Mar 4, 2026
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11 min read
How GCC Founders and Investors Are Navigating The Strikes
On missiles, fintechs going dark, and the strange normalcy in between.
Fintech
+2
Mar 2, 2026
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4 min read
AWS data centre in the UAE struck by "objects," taking fintech startups offline as Iranian missiles hit the Gulf
Unidentified objects struck an Amazon Web Services facility in the UAE on Sunday, triggering a fire and a cascading outage across at least 38 cloud services. Sarwa, Stake, Liv by Emirates NBD, and ADCB all reported disruptions.
News
+2
Feb 27, 2026
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4 min read
G42 opens job applications for AI agents, joining a global race to put bots on the org chart
The Abu Dhabi technology group, which last year led a $55 million round in Applied AI and is building chip safeguards to satisfy Washington, has begun recruiting AI agents into structured enterprise roles.
News
+2
Feb 27, 2026
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8 min read
Peak XV raises $1.3B amid partner exodus while quietly deepening its MENA portfolio
The firm formerly known as Sequoia India closed its first independent fundraise after three senior partners departed over a profit-sharing dispute on a 52x return. Meanwhile, GV Ravishankar has been quietly building from Dubai, sitting on the boards of Tabby, Huspy, and Lean Technologies, and leading four MENA deals in the past year.
