Happy Friday friends 👋

We'll need to step away from our desk more often if the result is the tsunami of activity we've seen over the past number of days! So much so that our exclusive reporting on Egypt's Breadfast cutting 58 tech staff, less than three months after its $50M pre-Series C, seems like a lifetime ago at this point.

There’s quite simply headlines everywhere you look, from a16z making its first GCC investment with Saudi fintech infrastructure startup Stitch in a $25M Series A, to a $51M Series B for UAE-based stablecoin-powered neobank Fasset, to billing and payments platform Stream extending its Seed round by an additional $5.2M led by BECO Capital, bringing total Seed funding to $9.2M.

There's plenty to dig into on the fund side too. We spent a couple of days on the ground in Dhaka, Bangladesh, earlier this week covering the launch of the country's first institutional venture fund, with 39 commercial banks pooling around $35M into a new vehicle called Onkur. Elsewhere, Qatar Foundation's QSTP has launched a $30M deep tech venture fund out of Doha to back early-stage startups across climate, health, education, and smart infrastructure.

We have more drama in food delivery land with Delivery Hero CEO Niklas Östberg stepping down following an activist campaign by Aspex Management (and the potential implications for talabat and HungerStation could be significant), Q1 2026 financial report analysis for Saudi BNPL giants Tamara and Tabby with the divergence between the two becoming increasingly eye-catching, and Cerebras closing at $70 billion on its Nasdaq debut in the year's biggest IPO, still fuelled overwhelmingly by Abu Dhabi revenue.

This is a long one, so we'd recommend reading online to avoid getting cut off by your email provider and to access the full edition.

Also, a very warm welcome to the over 700 new subscribers who've joined over the last week alone! We're delighted to have you here and hope you enjoy FWDstart’s coverage. If you’ve any questions or a story, just reply to this email and we’ll follow up ASAP.

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Fasset (🇦🇪 UAE), a stablecoin-powered neobanking and cross-border payments platform serving more than 2 million wallets across 125 countries, has raised $51M in a Series B round, with participation from SBI Group, Investcorp, Arz Portföy, and strategic family offices.

Stitch (🇸🇦 KSA), a Riyadh-based fintech infrastructure platform building unified financial systems for banks, lenders, and fintechs, has raised $25M in a Series A round, led by Andreessen Horowitz in the firm's first GCC investment, with participation from existing investors Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, RAED Ventures, and SVC.

Aumet (🇸🇦 KSA), an AI-first procurement operating system for hospitals, pharmacies, and national healthcare systems, has raised $12M in a Series A round, led by Emkan Capital, with participation from Qatar Development Bank, SABAH Fund, and AAIC, alongside existing investors Shorooq Partners and Right Side Capital Management.

Stream (🇸🇦 KSA), a Riyadh-based billing and payments infrastructure platform for MENA businesses, has raised a $5.2M seed extension led by BECO Capital, with participation from STV, Flourish Ventures, and Arab Bank, alongside existing investors Outliers and BYLD, bringing total seed funding to $9.2M.

Lyrie.ai (🇦🇪 UAE), a Dubai-based cybersecurity platform securing autonomous AI agents across enterprise and government systems, has exited stealth with a $2M pre-Seed round from undisclosed investors.

Hakeem Health (🇸🇦 KSA), an AI-powered clinical decision support platform delivering real-time bilingual guidance to doctors at the point of care, has raised $1.65M, led by Merak Capital, with participation from Sanabil 500.

Gabster (🇸🇦 KSA), a unified AI-powered business management platform consolidating customer communications and operations across more than 10 channels, has raised $500K in a pre-Seed round backed by RAI (Rajhi Investment) and T2.

HASIF (🇶🇦 Qatar), an AI-powered accounting and financial compliance platform for SMEs, has received an undisclosed investment from Snoonu through its Startup Factory initiative.

🇧🇩 Bangladesh's 39 commercial banks have pooled around $35M into Onkur, the country's first joint institutional venture fund targeting late-seed and Series A startups. Managed by BSIC and chaired by City Bank CEO Mashrur Arefin, the fund consolidates a 2021 requirement that banks allocate 1% of net profits to startup financing. First investments are planned for Q4 2026, with capital expected to grow to ~$50M once foreign bank subsidiaries complete participation. The vehicle addresses a chronic gap: of ~$1.1B ever deployed into Bangladeshi startups, around $950M has come from foreign sources.

🇶🇦 Qatar Foundation's QSTP has launched a $30M Tech Venture Fund targeting early-stage deep tech startups headquartered in Qatar. The fund will co-invest alongside VC partners rather than leading rounds, with an inaugural cohort including Global Ventures, Golden Gate Ventures, White Star Capital, VentureSouq, and Builders VC. Portfolio companies must be Qatar-headquartered with core leadership and operations based locally, focusing on sectors where deep tech intersects with climate, health, education, and smart infrastructure. The fund follows QSTP's first vehicle, which deployed $20M+ across 150+ startups.

♻️ Egypt-based Averroes Ventures is targeting a $50M fund focused on startups converting waste into value-added products across MENA, per Asharq. The fund will also target industrial, agricultural, and energy sectors, with backing from international investors, development institutions, and local banks. Final close is planned for Q3 2026. Founded in 2017, Averroes currently manages a portfolio valued at approximately $10M including Nawah and Khaznly, with previous exits from Breadfast and Trella.

🥖 Egyptian q-commerce platform Breadfast has cut 58 staff across engineering, product, and data functions, the company confirmed to FWDstart, less than three months after announcing a $50M pre-Series C backed by Mubadala, the Olayan family, Y Combinator, and the IFC. Breadfast described the move as "not to renew the contracts of 58 colleagues at their scheduled expiry," a mechanism that carries lighter severance obligations under Egyptian labour law and was reportedly also used in Careem's recent restructuring. The cuts represent less than 1% of total headcount but a larger share of the tech organisation specifically. The company's careers page lists active vacancies across commercial, supply chain, and operations, with a single tech role in fintech operations.

🛵 Delivery Hero CEO Niklas Östberg will step down by 31 March 2027 after 15 years, following an activist campaign by Aspex Management. Aspex raised its stake to ~15% on Monday after acquiring an additional 5% block from Prosus (which must exit under EU conditions), becoming Delivery Hero's largest practical voting bloc. Aspex has accused management of "value destruction" and called for competitive sales processes across regions including the Middle East, which now generates roughly 60% of group EBITDA from 30% of GMV. Delivery Hero stock closed at €23.55 against a 2021 peak above €130.

💳 Tamara's Saudi unit posted a 210% revenue rise and near-fivefold profit increase in Q1, driven by the scaling of its Islamic financing product launched after receiving a SAMA consumer finance licence in February 2025. Revenue reached $179M with net profit of $33M. Islamic financing revenue contributed SAR 182M (27% of the top line), exceeding the SAR 118M generated across all of FY2025. Tamara's Goldman / Citi / Apollo facility was upsized to SAR 5.79B with pricing repriced down roughly 70bps.

💳 Tabby's Saudi unit posted just 4% net profit growth in Q1 despite a 34% revenue rise, as operating expenses jumped 73% and net expected credit losses rose 2.6x on a larger loan book. Revenue reached $114M with net profit of $18M. The gross consumer loan book crossed $1B for the first time. Consumer fee revenue (from "snooze" deferrals and processing charges) grew 276% to 16% of total revenue. According to Tabby, the cost growth reflects a build-out of in-Kingdom operations previously procured from affiliates.

🧠 Cerebras closed at $311 on its Nasdaq debut, up 68% from the $185 IPO price and briefly touching $385 before a volatility halt, giving the AI chipmaker a market cap of nearly $70B. The company raised $5.5B in the year's biggest IPO. As FWDstart reported last month, 86% of 2025 revenue still came from two Abu Dhabi entities (G42 24%, MBZUAI 62%), though deals with OpenAI ($20B multi-year agreement), AWS, Meta, and Mistral should reduce that concentration.

🇱🇧 B&Y Venture Partners has launched the Lebanese Angel Investor Network (LAIN) with $5M+ in commitments to back Lebanese and diaspora-founded startups. Supported by Lebanon's Ministry of Technology and Artificial Intelligence, LAIN has assembled a seven-member advisory board including AUB, Endeavor, Beirut Digital District, LEBNET, Razor Capital, IMFndng, and T/S//A/. The network introduced its first cohort of four startup opportunities through the Vessel platform.

🚛 TruKKer has closed a facility of up to $300M with ADCB, letting the digital freight network borrow against unpaid invoices from enterprise clients across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The deal is among the first instances of a GCC bank extending structured credit to a technology company rather than a traditional corporate borrower. TruKKer, backed by Investcorp, Mubadala, and ADQ, connects 60,000+ transporters with 1,200+ enterprise clients and has raised over $500M in equity and debt, including a $100M pre-IPO round from Investcorp in late 2022.

🚕 Dubai Taxi Company's partnership with Bolt will expand into Abu Dhabi following DTC's agreement to acquire National Taxi for $395M, the listed operator's first major M&A since its 2023 DFM IPO. The deal adds ~2,700 vehicles and pushes the combined fleet past 14,000, handling around 78M annual trips across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Al Ain. DTC's newly announced Baidu driverless taxi programme will also enter Abu Dhabi for the first time, giving the operator a foothold in a market where Yango (via Abu Dhabi Mobility) and the Careem-Uber stack have led the digital booking layer. Completion is targeted for Q3 2026.

🇳🇬 Algebra Ventures has made its first investment in a Nigeria-headquartered company, participating in a growth round for BFREE, the pan-African distressed credit investor. The round was led by AfricInvest through its Financial Inclusion Vehicle, with existing investors Capria Ventures, VestedWorld, Axian CVC, and others also participating. Founded in 2020, BFREE buys distressed retail and SME credit portfolios and structures forward flow arrangements with financial institutions, having closed 35+ transactions with a portfolio of 11M+ borrower accounts.

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