Happy Friday friends 👋

Second acts are this week’s accidental theme, arriving in three rather different forms.

First, Swvl has raised $14.5 million led by Coefficient, the Houston-based investment firm backed by Egypt’s Sawiris family, four years after its $1.5 billion SPAC listing spectacularly unravelled. Mostafa Kandil’s company has spent the intervening years retreating from consumer ride-hailing into enterprise and government transport contracts across Egypt and the Gulf, narrowly navigating Nasdaq delisting warnings and, last year, finally reporting its first annual profit. Now, remarkably, it is turning back towards growth, with the US firmly in its sights.

Then there’s the more eyebrow-raising variety. Builder.ai founder Sachin Dev Duggal has resurfaced in Dubai with SeKondBrain, 15 months after the QIA-backed unicorn entered insolvency, building an initial product designed to carry a user’s memory between competing AI models.

And, in the loosest interpretation of the theme, Fasset, the Dubai-based stablecoin-powered neobank, joins the Gulf fintech unicorn club on the back of raising a $68 million Series C at a $1 billion valuation led by Japan’s SBI Group, barely three months after its $51 million Series B.

We’ve also published our analysis of Delivery Hero’s H1 results following confirmation of the Uber takeover in July. The standout number is that Talabat is now generating 94% of the group’s regional profit, even as Hungerstation edges closer to breakeven.

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This and much more below 👇

This week’s round-up is a 5 min read:

Independent reporting, deep dives and analysis on the companies, investors and markets shaping technology across MENA.

Fasset (🇦🇪 UAE), a stablecoin-powered digital banking platform providing accounts, payments and investment products, has raised $68M in a Series C at a $1B valuation, led by Japan's SBI Group, with participation from Speedinvest, three months after its $51M Series B.

Stellaria (🇦🇪 UAE), a geospatial intelligence company, formerly Farmin, building an AI operating system that turns satellite imagery into analysis for government, defence, maritime and environmental use, has raised $6.8M in a Seed round from angel investors, at a $114.4M valuation.

Oro (🇦🇪 UAE), a financial AI platform converting plain-text instructions into multi-step DeFi transactions on a non-custodial basis, has raised $3M in a strategic round, co-led by MH Ventures and Mapleblock Capital, with participation from M2M Capital, Archer Capital, X21 Digital, Disrupt.com, and ZIGLabs.

Raff (🇸🇦 KSA), a retailtech connecting consumer brands directly with retailers, digitising distribution, inventory, fulfilment and payments, has raised $1.7M in a pre-Seed round, led by Vision Ventures, with participation from 500 Global, Palm VC, Oqal Group, and Salla co-founder Salman Butt.

ANALYSIS

Regional GMV rose 11.6% even as profit slipped, with Saudi appearing to move back towards breakeven ahead of Uber’s €13B takeover of the Berlin group.

🚌 Swvl has raised $14.5M across two private placements, led by Coefficient LP, the Houston-based firm backed by Egypt's Sawiris family, bringing fresh capital four years after its $1.5B SPAC listing unravelled. Coefficient is investing $10M to become Swvl's largest institutional shareholder, with an existing shareholder adding $3M and Sofico Holdings a further $1.5M announced a day later. Coefficient founder Abdalla Ali joins the board. Proceeds will fund US expansion, a new lending product for transport operators and the balance sheet. Swvl reported its first annual profit last year, with net income of $1.3M on revenue up 41% to $24.2M, having narrowed from the sprawling acquisition spree that followed its listing to enterprise and government transport contracts across Egypt and the Gulf.

🌍 Ventures Platform has closed its second pan-African fund at $84M, beating a $75M target, with Egypt now a core market for the Nigerian seed investor. The firm already backs Egyptian payment orchestration platform MoneyHash and used-car marketplace Karcel, and has written cheques from Fund II into five companies across Kenya, South Africa and Egypt as it moves beyond its Nigerian base. Egypt's MSMEDA sits on the LP roster alongside the IFC, EBRD, Norfund, BII and Proparco. Fund II is 1.8x the size of the $46M first fund, with cheques up to $3M and target entry stakes of 10-12%. The close lands in a cooled market, with African startups raising around $930M so far this year against $1.16B across all of last year.

SECOND ACT

New venture marks the return of the Builder.ai founder 15 months after the QIA-backed startup entered insolvency, with an initial product designed to carry memory between competing AI models.

🧠 Aramco Ventures has co-led a $20M seed round for US enterprise AI startup Twin1 AI, alongside Bessemer Venture Partners and Tribeca Venture Partners, as the company emerges from stealth. Founded in 2025 by Dr Lewis Z. Liu, Tom Cahn, Huiting Liu and Dr Jonathan Budd, Twin1 builds AI digital twins of individual professionals, drawing on approved emails, meetings and documents to make their expertise accessible across an organisation. The platform is already deployed in legal, financial services and energy. The funding will expand teams in San Mateo and London.

⚡ Aramco Ventures joined Emerald AI's $150M Series A at a $1.05B valuation, backing software that slows or pauses data centre computing jobs when the grid is under strain. The two-year-old company, founded by former Biden administration climate official Varun Sivaram, says the approach could unlock more than 100 gigawatts of untapped capacity on the existing US grid, years before new generation could be built.

🚛 QIA co-led a $200M round for autonomous trucking company Gatik. The company runs self-driving box trucks on middle-mile routes between warehouses and retail outlets, and recently removed safety drivers from its commercial routes, operating dozens of fully driverless trucks day and night. The round is Gatik's largest, taking total funding to around $500M against $600M in contracted revenue.

PODCAST

After more than a decade building Bayzat, Talal Bayaa opens up about raising $55M+, hitting zero runway, fixing pricing, the pressure to deliver liquidity and how AI is reshaping the business.

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