Happy Friday friends 👋

News of an American frontier lab landing Gulf backing for a mammoth round hardly registers anymore, but BlueFive Capital co-leading the $3 billion raise for Kling AI, the Chinese video model spun out of Kuaishou and eyeing a Sora shaped void, certainly raised an eyebrow this week.

In many respects, it's what we've come to expect from Hazem Ben-Gacem's firm, which has raced to $15 billion in AUM since launching last year, backing everything from pre-launch startups like Abdallah Abu Sheikh's Mal and Tomaso Rodriguez's CargoX to more traditional PE plays in less rarefied air, like UAE-based dredging company Gulf Cobla.

BlueFive was the only Middle East name among co-leads that included Tencent, CPE, and CITIC Securities, and with Kling valued at $18 billion post-money and a Hong Kong listing on the horizon, they may not have to wait long for this one to mark itself up.

Elsewhere, Keyper has raised an $11 million Series A led by Speedinvest to expand monthly rent payments in the UAE, Jordan's ISSF has partnered with STV to bring the Google-backed AI Fund to Jordanian founders (its second partnership in a month after committing to Endeavor Catalyst V), and Amazon has brought 20-minute delivery to Egypt, opening yet another front in a quick commerce market that already counts Talabat, Breadfast, Noon and Rabbit, with Keeta widely expected to arrive next.

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Keyper (🇦🇪 UAE), a proptech that lets tenants convert the UAE's traditional annual rent payment into monthly digital instalments, has raised $11M in a Series A, led by Speedinvest, with participation from NeoVentures (Mashreq), MEVP, Dubai Future District Fund, Property Finder, Arab National Bank, Ellington Properties, Dar Ventures, and Abbey Road Investment Group.

AVELIN AI (🇦🇪 UAE), a sovereign AI platform letting enterprises and governments deploy AI while retaining full ownership of data, infrastructure, and compliance, has raised $3.7M in a pre-Seed round from angel investors.

ORA Technologies (🇲🇦 Morocco), the parent of food delivery platform KooulMaroc and mobile wallet ORA Cash, has raised $2M in a Series A extension, led by Moroccan private investors, bringing its total Series A to $10M.

Azraq (🇦🇪 UAE), an AI-powered risk intelligence platform standardising credit underwriting for data centre infrastructure co-built with The Utopia Studio, has received an undisclosed investment from A-typical Ventures.

Uvera (🇸🇦 KSA), a deeptech developing shelf-life extension technology, blockchain traceability, and IoT analytics, has raised an undisclosed Seed round, backed by Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures, LAB7 (Aramco's venture-building arm), and Core Vision.

Planno (🇦🇪 UAE), a geospatial AI platform combining satellite imagery and market data to identify high-potential commercial rooftops for solar installation, has received a strategic investment from Incubayt Investments.

Takeem (🇦🇪 UAE), a rental guarantee platform protecting landlords against tenant default while enabling monthly digital direct-debit payments, has received a strategic investment from Dubizzle Group, which becomes the exclusive portal for its Rental Guarantee product across Bayut and dubizzle.

🇯🇴 Jordan's ISSF has partnered with STV to bring the Saudi firm's Google-backed AI Fund to Jordanian founders. The $100M vehicle, launched in May 2025 as Google's first investment in a MENA venture firm, has deployed into four AI-native startups to date: Sawt, Clarity, Signit and Stream. ISSF framed the tie-up as a bridge between Jordan's technical talent and Saudi Arabia's scale and capital. It marks the fund of funds' second partnership in a month after committing $7M to Endeavor Catalyst V, as it opens its second investment phase. Financial terms were not disclosed.

🏢 Dubai Future District Fund (DFDF) has committed capital to MetaProp Fund IV, anchoring the New York PropTech investor as an early-stage partner for the emirate. MetaProp invests from pre-seed to Series A and runs an accelerator where portfolio companies receive investment and work directly with an LP base of institutional real estate operators. The two plan to introduce a dedicated Dubai module, bringing US PropTech founders into contact with regional stakeholders in support of the D33 agenda. Financial terms were not disclosed.

📚 Saudi edtech Noon Academy has acquired Almakhfi, a platform specialising in Qudurat and Tahsili exam preparation that has supported more than 250,000 students over eight years. Noon Academy, the Riyadh-based social learning platform founded in 2013 by Mohammed Aldhalaan and Abdulaziz AlSaeed, serves learners with live classes, AI-powered learning tools and skills programmes spanning programming, robotics and drones. The company has raised $62.6M to date, most recently a $41M Series B in 2023 co-led by Wa'ed Ventures and Raed Ventures. Terms were not disclosed.

🎬 Abu Dhabi's BlueFive Capital co-led a roughly $3B round for Kling AI, the video-generation unit spun out of China's Kuaishou, in the largest financing ever raised by a video model company. The round values Kling at $18B post-money ahead of a planned Hong Kong listing, with BlueFive the only Middle East name among co-leads that include Tencent, CPE and CITIC Securities. Kling's ARRhit $500M in March, up fivefold in a year. The deal caps a busy run for BlueFive, which led Mal's $230M seed and CargoX's $250M round this year, and now reports $15B in AUM, up from $4.4B last November.

🤖 QIA has participated in SambaNova's $1B Series F, backing the AI infrastructure company alongside General Atlantic, Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price and Capital Group. SambaNova, founded in 2017 and headquartered in San Jose, provides full-stack AI inference infrastructure spanning chips, systems and cloud services for enterprises and sovereign AI initiatives. It marks QIA's second investment in the company this year, following participation in its previous round in February.

Lean has raised more than $100M to build the region’s fintech infrastructure layer. We sat down with CPO Tewfik Cassis on the eve of the company’s biggest product launch to date, to talk Pay by Bank, open finance, stablecoins, agentic commerce and why Lean’s ambitions now stretch far beyond open banking.

Listen or watch now on
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🇪🇬 Amazon has launched Amazon Now in Egypt, bringing 20-minute delivery of groceries and essentials to select areas of Cairo, Giza, Alexandria and the North Coast. Egypt becomes the third regional market for the service after the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with Amazon running the same playbook: dark stores, quick commerce embedded in the main app, and Prime (EGP 29 a month) as the retention flywheel. The launch adds a heavily capitalised entrant to a market where Talabat just opened MENA's largest q-commerce fulfilment centre, Noon Minutes has ratcheted up its coverage in recent months, Breadfast raised $50M at a reported $400M valuation in February, and Rabbit counts more than 1.4 million customers, with Meituan's Keeta widely expected to enter the fray next.

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