Happy Friday friends 👋

A big thank you to everyone who came along to Demo Night at Dubai Founders HQ on Wednesday, where around 150 of you turned up to watch 7 teams demo. It was super cool to meet some of you in person, and huge thanks to our co-hosts Propeller and Antler for making it happen. We have more in-person events in the pipeline, so keep your eyes peeled. We'll also be at Money 20/20 in Riyadh next week, so if you're around, come say hello!

Now, onto the week that was. On the diaspora front, Egypt-born Kareem Amin's Clay has raised a $115 million Series D at a $7.1 billion valuation, more than doubling its mark in a year with ARR on pace for $200 million this quarter. In M&A related matters, PayTabs has agreed a $100 million-plus deal for Amazon Payment Services' MENA operations, bringing the business that began life as PayFort in the Souq.com days back into regional hands. And HUMAIN’s Tareq Amin rather unconventionally kicked off IPO preparations just 16 months after launch, with a LinkedIn post out of the blue. Never a dull moment.

We've also published our deep dive on Abhi's IPO, digging into the Pakistani microfinance bank, the gold book at the heart of its lending, and the logic behind listing now, with founder Omair Ansari on what investors are actually buying.

As always, if you're enjoying our coverage, please support our ability to grow by becoming a premium subscriber for only $9.99 a month. Or if you'd prefer to bring the whole team along, check out our new group plans here.

This and much (much) more below 👇

This week’s round-up is a 5 min read:

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Zeal (🇪🇬 Egypt), a payments company whose software adds loyalty and merchant analytics to existing card terminals, has raised $10M from undisclosed investors, taking total funding to $14M.

Sav (🇦🇪 UAE), a consumer fintech covering account aggregation, prepaid cards, investments and gold, has raised $3.5M in a pre-Series A round, led by Phoenix Venture Partners.

Keep Converting (🇦🇪 UAE), an AI platform that generates and tests personalised product pages for ecommerce shoppers, has raised $2M in a Pre-Seed round, led by Nuwa Capital and COTU Ventures.

Dawraty (🇰🇼 Kuwait), a bilingual learning platform selling accredited healthcare and professional training to institutions, has raised $2M in a Seed round at a $10M valuation, backed by Qatar Development Bank.

Gaia (🇸🇦 KSA), an enterprise AI layer connecting a company's internal systems into one search and agent tool, has raised $1.5M in a Pre-Seed round, led by SEEDRA Ventures.

Clauze.AI (🇸🇦 KSA), a legal AI platform for contract review, governance and due diligence, has received an undisclosed strategic investment from White & Case.

Carly (🇸🇦 KSA), an online marketplace for new and used cars, has received an undisclosed investment from Pinnacle Growth & Secondary Fund, combining primary and secondary capital.

Charikaty (🇲🇦 Morocco), a legaltech handling online company formation, has raised an undisclosed Pre-Seed round at a €3M valuation, backed by Red Tape Ventures and angel investors.

DIASPORA

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.

💳 PayTabs has agreed to acquire Amazon Payment Services' MENA operations in a deal worth more than $100M, creating a combined platform expected to process over $40B in transactions annually. The Amazon business began as PayFort in Dubai in 2013 and came into the group through the 2017 Souq acquisition, working with more than 3,500 businesses across nine markets. PayTabs, founded in 2014 by Abdulaziz Al Jouf and backed early by Aramco's Wa'ed, has grown through acquisitions in India, Turkey, Egypt and the UAE while shifting from its original gateway product towards infrastructure sold to banks and governments. Neither company disclosed how the deal is being financed.

🛰️ IHC is acquiring an 80% stake in Marlan Holding, moving the Abu Dhabi group into the space economy through its International Tech Group subsidiary. Marlan Space founded and operates Orbitworks, the Kezad-based commercial satellite manufacturer it runs as a joint venture with US-based Loft Orbital, and the Altair Earth observation constellation. A day after the IHC announcement, Marlan and Loft Orbital said they were leading a consortium behind a $1B investment in France to build a 50-satellite AI constellation, with the satellites produced at Orbitworks' Abu Dhabi plant. Terms weren’t disclosed.

Read more:

SAUDI AI AMBITIONS

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.

🚇 The UAE has led a $3B Series D for Elon Musk's The Boring Company at a $23B valuation, roughly quadrupling the tunnelling company's mark since 2022. Dubai's Shamal Holding was among the named investors alongside Sequoia, a16z, Temasek and Vy Capital, though the other Emirati entities were not identified. The company says it plans more than 150km of additional tunnels across the UAE, separate from the Dubai Loop contract signed with the RTA in February, with no locations, costs or timetable disclosed. Its only operating passenger network remains Las Vegas. The WSJ reported some investors were asked to help recruit staff or arrange introductions to government officials as a condition of joining the round.

🏭 Aramco Ventures has invested in DeepCtrls' Series B+, a round led by Chinese battery giant CATL, backing the physical AI company that builds control software for energy and computing infrastructure. DeepCtrls uses its PhyAI engine to let complex industrial systems predict, optimise and run autonomously, with customers including Tencent, ByteDance, Nvidia, TSMC and LG across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America.

🤖 Arcapita has invested in STV's Emerging Tech & AI Fund, joining Google, SAB and a group of semi-sovereign and endowment backers in the $100M vehicle. The Bahrain-headquartered alternative investment manager, which has more than 30 years of operations and $32B in total transaction value, brings a network STV expects to connect with its portfolio companies. The fund targets application-layer AI startups and has made four investments to date: Arabic voice agent platform Sawt, customer analytics company Clarity, legal AI startup Signit and payments platform Stream. Arcapita's cheque size wasn’t disclosed.

📱 Baraka has added DFM and ADX stocks to its platform, letting UAE customers invest in local listings in AED. The DIFC-based, DFSA-regulated platform says customers investing in UAE stocks grew more than 25x from its pre-launch pilot by August, with Emaar, ADNOC Gas, ADNOC Distribution, ADIB and Salik drawing the most interest. Access runs through Arqaam Capital's direct market access facility, with securities held under Emirates NBD custody. Egypt's Thndr opened a similar route last August, when ADX onboarded it as its first remote retail trading member.

🪪 NymCard has received in-principle approval from the Central Bank of the UAE for a SVF licence, its third UAE permission alongside Retail Payment Services and Open Finance. The card-issuing infrastructure company, led by founder Omar Onsi, powers programmes for fintechs across the region, including Alaan, which itself secured in-principle SVF approval last week. It extends a summer run of CBUAE approvals that has taken in Revolut, Checkout.com, Pemo, KamelPay, qlub and Remitly.

PODCAST

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.