Jamie Lane

Jamie Lane is the co-founder of FWDstart, a Gulf/MENA-focused tech and venture publication aiming to be the region’s referential source for rigorous analysis and original reporting. Based in Abu Dhabi, Jamie’s coverage spans AI, fintech, and the evolving capital stack in MENA. He also hosts the VC React podcast. Before FWDstart, he led digital strategy at a pan-European B2B publishing house, overseeing editorial, subscriptions, and commercial operations.

Scaling Across MENA: An Operator’s Guide to Hiring, Payroll & Compliance

A practical 45-minute conversation with RemotePass's Kamal Reggad on what actually starts to break when companies build teams across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the wider MENA region.

Sep 15, 2026

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1 min read

Tabby raises $233M Series F at $6.5B valuation as it pushes beyond BNPL

The round comes as new Saudi lending licences and a UAE wallet licence expand it into longer-term credit, SME finance and everyday money management.

Sep 14, 2026

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2 min read

Tarabut secures $50M from Saudi banks and business groups as it deepens Kingdom focus

Riyad Bank, SAB Invest’s X-Tech Fund and GIB Saudi Arabia are among the backers, three years after Tarabut’s $32 million Series A was itself raised to expand in Saudi.

Sep 14, 2026

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2 min read

Egypt-born founder's Clay hits $7.1B valuation, HUMAIN eyes IPO

PayTabs agrees $100M-plus deal for Amazon Payment Services MENA, UAE leads Boring Company's $3B round, inside Abhi's IPO and the gold book behind it, plus this week's MENA startup, VC, and tech news round-up.

Sep 11, 2026

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6 min read

Egypt-born Kareem Amin’s Clay raises $115M Series D at $7.1B valuation

The New York GTM software company has more than doubled its valuation since its CapitalG-led Series C last year, with ARR now on pace to reach about $200 million this quarter.

Sep 11, 2026

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2 min read

UAE leads $3B Boring Company round at $23B valuation as Musk expands tunnel plans beyond Dubai

The funding roughly quadruples the tunnelling company’s valuation since 2022 and comes with plans for more than 150km of additional underground infrastructure across the UAE.

Sep 11, 2026

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2 min read

Keep Converting raises $2M pre-seed led by Nuwa Capital and COTU Ventures

The UAE startup has emerged from stealth with an AI platform that generates and tests personalised product pages for individual ecommerce shoppers, claiming an average 64% conversion-rate lift across early deployments.

Sep 10, 2026

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2 min read

Saudi used-car platform Carly takes Pinnacle investment in primary-secondary deal

The undisclosed transaction is the first investment from Pinnacle’s new growth and secondaries fund, launched last month to back later-stage Saudi tech companies while providing liquidity to existing shareholders.

Sep 10, 2026

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1 min read

Inside Abhi’s IPO: the bank, the gold book and the logic behind its listing

Abhi is preparing to list the Pakistani microfinance bank that now accounts for roughly four-fifths of its lending, with gold-backed loans at the heart of the business. We dug into the numbers and spoke with founder Omair Ansari about why it’s going public now and what investors are actually buying.

Sep 9, 2026

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14 min read

Gaia raises $1.5M led by SEEDRA to build sovereign AI layer for Saudi enterprises

The Riyadh startup is building a permission-aware search, assistant and AI agent layer across companies’ internal systems, with data kept inside Saudi or deployed on-premise.

Sep 8, 2026

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1 min read

Sav raises $3.5M pre-Series A led by Phoenix Venture Partners for Saudi expansion

The UAE consumer fintech has broadened from a savings app into a regulated personal-finance platform spanning cards, investments and account aggregation, taking total funding to about $6 million.

Sep 7, 2026

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2 min read

HUMAIN starts IPO preparations 16 months after launch, with revenues still undisclosed

The Saudi AI company says its compute is selling before it is built, but an eventual public-market pitch will need to show who is paying for it and how much demand comes from outside the Kingdom’s state-backed ecosystem.

Sep 7, 2026

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3 min read

PayTabs agrees $100M-plus deal for Amazon Payment Services’ MENA operations

The Saudi payments company will take over a business that began as PayFort before joining Amazon through its 2017 acquisition of Souq, creating a combined platform expected to process more than SAR 150 billion annually.

Sep 7, 2026

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2 min read

How Quiqup Rebuilt From Dubai

After more than a decade building Quiqup, Bassel El Koussa opens up about raising $45M, surviving Uber’s arrival, rebuilding from Dubai, cutting revenue by 50% and what the next era of commerce could look like.

Sep 7, 2026

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5 min read

HUMAIN's $10B VC fund could grow larger, Keeta turns profitable in Saudi

COFE closes $43M pre-IPO round targeting 2029 Saudi listing, Nvidia in early talks with Wa'ed-backed chip startup Rebellions, Adam Neumann's Flow enters the UAE, plus this week's MENA startup, VC, and tech news round-up.

Sep 4, 2026

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9 min read

The AI announcements from LEAP 2026 worth knowing

LEAP closed in Riyadh yesterday after four days dominated by Saudi Arabia’s AI buildout, with HUMAIN responsible for a fairly extraordinary share of the announcements.

Sep 4, 2026

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2 min read

Alaan gets in-principle UAE approval for SVF and payments licences as it pushes into business banking

Final approval would allow the fintech to hold customer funds, issue corporate cards and run cross-border payments under its own CBUAE licences as it expands beyond spend management into business banking.

Sep 4, 2026

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1 min read

Keeta records first profitable month in Saudi Arabia after 22 months as delivery price war bites

Keeta took 29 months to reach the same milestone in Hong Kong, where it launched in May 2023.

Sep 4, 2026

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6 min read

HUMAIN says planned $10B global VC fund could be larger, unveils separate Saudi-focused vehicle

The Saudi AI company will create HUMAIN Limitless, a separate initiative specifically focused on investing in and supporting AI companies within Saudi Arabia.

Sep 4, 2026

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2 min read

Sirdab raises $10M Series A from Elm and BECO to expand Saudi logistics platform across GCC

The profitable Saudi logistics startup has grown revenue 20x since Y Combinator and now connects more than 850 businesses to a network of 120+ warehouses and 60+ transport providers.

Sep 3, 2026

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1 min read

ZenHR raises $6M bridge round led by Impact46 to expand AI products and EWA

The Saudi HR software company is expanding its AI products and earned wage access offering across 11 markets in MENA, four years after raising a $10 million growth round.

Sep 3, 2026

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2 min read

FlyAkeed raises $25.2M across Sanabil-led equity round and Artal sukuk

The Saudi corporate travel platform is adding a deferred-payment layer to its software, with the new financing split between equity and Shariah-compliant debt.

Sep 3, 2026

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1 min read

Saudi SME lending startup Abwab.ai raises $4M led by Speedinvest and MEVP

The startup says its technology is used by more than 13 financial institutions and has processed over SAR 1 billion in SME loans.

Sep 3, 2026

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2 min read

COFE closes $43M pre-IPO round at $178M valuation, targets Saudi listing by 2029

Wa’ed Ventures returns three years after leading its $15m Series B, as the Kuwait-born coffee-ordering app remakes itself into enterprise procurement and commerce software.

Sep 2, 2026

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2 min read

Adam Neumann’s Flow enters UAE with DIFC licence, targets first openings in early 2027

a16z-backed residential operator plans communities in Dubai and Abu Dhabi as its portfolio grows to 8,500 homes under management or development.

Sep 2, 2026

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2 min read