Happy Friday, friends 👋

An exceedingly busy week, by all accounts, with ten startups across MENA raising just shy of $200 million over the past seven days. Egypt's quick commerce darling, Breadfast, and Dubai's fractional real estate champion, Stake, were the main headline grabbers, and for good reason.

We also have the curious case of Bluefive Capital once again deploying a significant sum into a very new, somewhat opaque AI company with an exceptionally broad remit, Abu Dhabi’s Origen, having only last month backed Mal in a $220 million seed round.

It turns out that Qatar and the UAE aren't the only Gulf states with vested interests in Elon Musk's xAI. Saudi's HUMAIN disclosed this week that it backed the AI company to the tune of $3 billion as part of xAI's $20 billion Series E in January, a stake that has since been promptly converted into SpaceX shares following the acquisition.

We also have exits, expansion plays, and financial results from the likes of Talabat and Rasan, plus lots more.

Thank you as well for the support and kind feedback on the Careem Mafia Database. If you're interested in accessing it, all you need to do is sign up for a premium subscription to help support and enable us to continue doing the work that we do.

This and much more below 👇

This week’s round-up is a 5 min read:

Breadfast (🇪🇬 Egypt), a quick-commerce and e-grocery platform, has raised $50M in a pre-Series C round, backed by Mubadala Investment Company, Olayan Financing Company, Y Combinator, IFC, SBI Investment, Novastar Ventures, 4DX Ventures, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, with a larger Series C expected in H1 2026.

Origen (🇦🇪 UAE), an Abu Dhabi-based AI technology company focused on embedding artificial intelligence into operational workflows across government services, smart homes, and advanced manufacturing, has raised $50M in a strategic investment from Bluefive Capital, to accelerate product development, expand partnerships, and attract specialised talent.

Stake (🇦🇪 UAE), a regulated fintech platform enabling fractional and full real estate ownership has raised an oversubscribed $31M in a Series B round led by Emirates NBD, with participation from Mubadala's MENA Venture Capital Fund, MEVP, Property Finder, STV, Wa'ed Ventures, GFH Partners, and Ellington Properties, bringing total funding to $58M.

Madfu (🇸🇦 KSA), a Sharia-compliant BNPL platform enabling consumers to split purchases into up to six interest-free instalments, licensed by the SAMA, has raised $25.5M in a pre-Series A round led by Afaq Capital, with participation from angel investors.

Cashin (🇸🇦 KSA), an AI-powered energy fintech platform enabling fuel station operators to manage financial and operational processes through a unified system, has raised $16M in a Series A round led by Impact46.

Flextock (🇪🇬 Egypt), an e-commerce infrastructure platform across Egypt and Saudi Arabia, has raised $12.6M in a Series A round led by TLcom Capital, with participation from Conjunction Capital, Capria Ventures, Access Bridge Ventures, Foundation Ventures, BY Venture Partners, JIMCO, Alter Global, and MSA Capital.

Solidrange (🇸🇦 KSA), a cybersecurity startup specialising in AI-powered Governance, Risk, and Compliance automation and cybersecurity awareness, has raised $2.4M in a Seed round led by Sharaka Capital, with participation from Sadu Capital, SEEDRA Ventures, and Tali Ventures (stc's investment arm).

Deep.SA (🇸🇦 KSA), an AI company developing locally hosted platforms and models tailored for government and enterprise clients with a focus on data sovereignty and regulatory compliance, has extended its pre-seed round with the addition of Vision Ventures, on top of a prior SAR 4.5M raise from TAM and Raed Ventures, to scale its recently launched alPlatformai secure AI access platform.

ZIWO (🇦🇪 UAE), an Arabic-first, AI-powered cloud Contact Center as a Service platform, has raised an undisclosed strategic debt investment from Ajeej Capital's Amplify Growth Fund, to scale across 10+ MENA countries.

Charikaty (🇲🇦 Morocco), a regtech startup offering fully digital company formation services including legal structuring, government registration, modifications, and compliance processes for entrepreneurs, has raised $150K on Season 3 of Morocco's national investment show "Qui Veut Investir Dans Mon Projet?", backed by Ilan Benhaim (co-founder of Veepee) and Karim Amor (founder of Epineon.ai).

🇯🇴 Oasis500, Jordan's first dedicated seed-stage tech investor, has launched Oasis Ventures III targeting over $20 million for early-stage tech startups with scalable, regionally competitive models. Established in 2010 through the King Abdullah II Fund for Development, Oasis500 has invested in 193 startups that have raised $135 million in follow-on funding and carry a current portfolio valuation of $243 million. The fund's track record includes backing CoinMENA, the Bahrain-based crypto exchange acquired by Turkey's Paribu in December 2025 for up to $240 million.

🚀 HUMAIN, Saudi Arabia's PIF-owned AI company, disclosed a $3 billion investment in Elon Musk's xAI as part of the company's $20 billion Series E in January 2026 – shortly before xAI was acquired by SpaceX, converting HUMAIN's stake into SpaceX shares. The presumption is that the investment came via HUMAIN Ventures, the company's $10 billion AI-focused VC fund that CEO Tareq Amin said was also in talks with OpenAI and a16z in mid-2025. In participating in the round HUMAIN joined fellow Gulf investors QIA and Abu Dhabi's MGX in anchoring the mega-round. The deal builds on a November 2025 partnership committing HUMAIN and xAI to develop 500MW+ of AI data center infrastructure and deploy Grok models in The Kingdom.

🇶🇦 Qatar Development Bank led a €5.9 million Series B extension for Contents, an Italian AI workflow orchestration platform now establishing Doha as its Middle East operational hub. The round brings total funding to €21 million, with existing investor Alkemia Capital also participating. Contents positions itself as a "work execution" layer for enterprises – model-agnostic, integrating Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Mistral – orchestrating end-to-end workflows from product launches to regulatory documentation across 25+ languages including 15 Arabic dialects.

🚗 Dubai-based AlgoDriven has been acquired by San Francisco's Emergence in a 100% cash deal valued between $10-50 million, giving investors including Global Ventures, 500 Global, and Oraseya Capital an immediate exit. The 2017-founded automotive AI platform, which appraises over $25 billion worth of used cars annually across 1,000+ dealerships in 10 countries, is profitable and has grown revenue 5x since its 2021 Series A. Emergence, backed by the Pritzker family (Hyatt hotel dynasty), will invest new capital to expand into the US and Latin America; both co-founders are staying for at least five years.

📚 Baims, the MENA edtech group which operates across Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and the UK (including tutoring platform Orcas), has acquired MedMasters, Iraq's premier online medical education marketplace, marking its second strategic acquisition. MedMasters, founded by medical doctors, built a mobile-first platform serving thousands of Iraqi medical students with strong organic growth and minimal marketing spend. Terms were not disclosed.

🛵 Jahez is launching Snoonu in Kuwait and Bahrain, expanding the Qatari delivery platform it acquired a 76.56% stake in last October. Snoonu will enter both markets with food delivery first, followed by grocery and other on-demand retail categories, leveraging Jahez's existing merchant relationships and logistics networks. The Saudi-listed group already operates its Jahez platform in both markets but believes Snoonu's multi-vertical model will deepen customer engagement and expand wallet share. Snoonu founder Hamad Al-Hajri, who retained a 23.44% stake post-acquisition, recently began recycling proceeds into the ecosystem as an LP in Shorooq and Rasmal Ventures.

🇬🇧 Penny Software, the Riyadh-founded procurement SaaS company, has opened its first UK office in Derby as a regional hub for European expansion. The AI-powered platform, which digitises source-to-pay processes for enterprises across 75+ countries, has built partnerships with KPMG, McKinsey, and Voltalia. Co-founder Iyad Aldalooj was formerly GM of Careem KSA from 2017-2020 – but if you checked out FWDstart's Careem Diaspora Database, you'd already know that!

🍔 Talabat has reported full-year 2025 GMV of $10.2 billion (up 27% YoY) with net income of $470 million, but strong operating results haven't translated to stock performance – shares are down ~54% since the December 2024 IPO, falling from an all-time high of 1.72 AED to around 0.84 AED today. The Dubai-listed delivery giant grew its user base 19% to 7.6 million, partner network 22% to 84,000, and active drivers 27% to 157,000. Talabat Pro subscribers nearly doubled, while advertising revenue climbed to 3.5% of GMV. Perhaps the stickiest stat is that "high value customers" make up just 39% of users but drive 81% of GMV.

📊 Rasan has reported FY 2025 revenue of $174 million, up 82% YoY, with net profit of $66 million (up 161%) and adjusted EBITDA margins expanding to 44.9% from 31.7%. The Saudi insurtech, which operates Tameeni (the kingdom's largest online insurance aggregator with ~47% retail motor market share), has seen its stock nearly triple since its June 2024 IPO – now trading at a $2.8 billion market cap versus just under $1 billion at debut. Founded by Moayad and Ayman Alfallaj in 2016, Rasan raised only $24 million pre-IPO (led by Impact46) before its 129x oversubscribed listing. The company launched Health Individual, Home, Protection & Savings, and Domestic Helper insurance products in 2025 as it diversifies beyond motor.