Happy Friday friends 👋

Who’d want to be an operator in the food delivery or quick commerce game right now? Not us, but do keep your eyes peeled over the coming weeks, we’ve some big stories dropping on that front.

In the meantime, we do have one, in the form of Delivery Hero's publication of its Q1 2026 earnings. We dig into the detail below, and no surprises that MENA continues to do much of the heavy lifting for Niklas Östberg's Berlin-listed giant (roughly 60% of EBITDA from 30% of GMV). We'd recommend checking it out here.

We've also published our Tamara deep dive this week, breaking down 40 pages of audited financials to understand how Saudi's first homegrown fintech unicorn rebuilt its entire revenue model in the space of a year. If you read our Tabby breakdown a few weeks back, this is the companion piece. You can read both and 60+ other deep-dives, with a FREE trial.

Elsewhere, Dubai's Comfi has raised $65M to scale B2B buy now, pay later across MENA, Gulf sovereign wealth funds will own 38.5% of the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery (PIF alone taking roughly $10B), and BlueFive Capital is writing the largest cheque in a consortium acquiring Porsche's stake in Bugatti Rimac, because why invest in hyperscalers when you can invest in hypercars instead.

This and much more below 👇

This week’s round-up is a 5 min read:

Comfi (🇦🇪 UAE), a B2B buy now, pay later platform allowing SME suppliers to offer up to 90-day payment terms to business customers while receiving payment themselves within 24 hours, has raised $65M in a pre-Series A round combining equity and debt, led by Iliad Partners, with participation from Yango Ventures, Raw Ventures, Partners for Growth, and Shorooq.

BRKZ (🇸🇦 KSA), a B2B construction supply chain platform connecting contractors with suppliers across thousands of SKUs, has secured an undisclosed strategic investment from SIC, the investment arm of the Saudi Industrial Development Fund (SIDF).

Udora (🇦🇪 UAE), a gifting marketplace connecting customers with local florists, confectioners, and artisan sellers across 50+ markets and 1,500 cities, has raised $10M in a private funding round.

Lola (🇧🇭 Bahrain), a custom cake platform that lets users design and order fully customised cakes through a mobile app in under a minute, has raised $3M in a Seed round, led by Vision Ventures, with participation from Aljazira Capital, Seedra Ventures, and Plus VC.

🌍 Novastar Ventures has closed its third fund at $147M, making it one of the largest Africa-focused VC vehicles. Proparco committed $5M through its Choose Africa Venture Capital programme. The fund writes $1-8M cheques from seed to growth, and has already backed six companies across delivery, electric mobility, smartphone access, and agritech. Novastar now manages over $350M in assets. NVIII is also Novastar's first properly pan-African fund (Funds I and II were strictly East and West Africa), with Egyptian quick-commerce player Breadfast, whose $10M Series B2 Novastar led alongside EBRD in August, the sole MENA name on the list announced to date.

🚗 Porsche is selling its 45% stake in Bugatti Rimac and 20.6% of Rimac Group to a consortium fronted by New York's HOF Capital, though the largest cheque is actually being written by Abu Dhabi-based BlueFive Capital (the $15bn ADGM firm run by ex-Investcorp co-CEO Hazem Ben-Gacem). Bloomberg pegs Bugatti Rimac at north of $1B, implying roughly $500M for Porsche's slice plus whatever Rimac Group is worth on top. The sale is really a function of Porsche's own pain, with operating profit down 93% in FY25 under US tariffs, weak Chinese demand and EV-related charges, leaving little room to keep capital parked in a brand that produces fewer than 100 cars a year and over which Porsche never had operational control.

🇪🇬 Talabat has opened MENA's largest q-commerce distribution hub in Egypt, a 27,000 sqm facility in the YANMU East Logistics Park along the Cairo-Suez Road. The hub can process up to one million items daily and serves Talabat Mart operations across 12 cities, with plans to expand to 17. The investment lands as competition in Egypt's quick commerce market continues to heat up. Breadfast announced a $50M pre-Series C funding earlier this year, Rabbit is already entrenched on the ground, and industry sources tell us they expect Keeta to launch in Egypt within six months.

🇰🇼 Qatari super app Snoonu has launched in Kuwait, with local CEO Bader Al-Ajeel leading operations across e-commerce, courier, home services, and gift deliveries. Snoonu is owned by Jahez, which acquired a majority stake in 2023. The timing is telling, with Kuwait historically one of Talabat's near-monopoly markets, but Keeta's entry in H2 2025 has already taken more than 10% share within months, on industry estimates.

🎬 Gulf sovereign wealth funds will own 38.5% of the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery, according to an FCC filing. PIF will hold 15.1%, UAE sovereign wealth 12.8%, and QIA 10.6%, representing close to $24B in total investment (PIF alone taking ~$10B). The Ellison family and RedBird will retain 100% voting control with no board seats for foreign investors. WBD shareholders voted in favour of the $111B sale last week, with Paramount footing the $2.8B break fee owed to Netflix (whose rival December 2025 bid was abandoned) on top of its cash offer. The deal still requires European regulatory approval and could face legal challenges from state attorneys general. As FWDstart reported in December 2025, an earlier iteration of the Gulf-backed bid appeared to collapse when Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners withdrew and the WBD board rejected Paramount's offer as "illusory," only for the parties to subsequently reach agreement.

🚗 Shorooq has participated in a $10.3M Series A for Chazm, the South Korean automotive fintech managing the lifecycle of leased and rented vehicles. The round was led by Stonebridge with participation from KB Investment, Futureplay, Zero1NE Ventures (Hyundai Motor Group's venture arm), and LX Ventures. Chazm has reached 300,000+ users and $80M+ in cumulative transaction volume, and is now expanding beyond Korea into Japan and the Middle East. The deal leans on Shorooq's long-running Korea corridor, anchored by Korean co-founder Shane Shin and a roster of Korean LPs including KVIC, Kakao, IMM Investment, and Hanwha Life.

🪙 Bahrain's Rain has acquired Digital Ma'arefa, the Saudi-based financial media company behind The Finance Memo, Crypto Memo, and AI Memo, reaching 1M+ followers and 100K+ newsletter subscribers. Rain, backed by Paradigm and Kleiner Perkins at a $500M valuation in 2022, now serves 2M+ users with $11B+ in total trading volume. Saudi, where Digital Ma'arefa's audience is concentrated, remains legally grey for crypto but the CMA is developing a regulatory framework expected for consultation in H2 2026.

📱 Vodafone Qatar has acquired Maktapp through its subsidiary Infinity Fintech Ventures, expanding beyond telecom into SME fintech. Founded in 2014 by Saleh Al-Mansouri, Maktapp offers cloud-based business operations software, while its fintech arm Fatora provides payments and invoicing for SMEs. Maktapp has been backed by Qatar Development Bank, Qatar FinTech Hub, and 500 Global. The deal continues Vodafone Qatar's fintech push, which includes launching iPay, a licensed e-wallet.

📺 US-based InvenTel has fully acquired Cairo-based adtech startup Amzolute, the Amazon ads partner running campaigns for 850+ brands across eight countries including the US, UK, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. The company has generated $92M in client sales with a reported 4.3x average return on ad spend. Co-founder Ahmed El Hefny will not have a role post-acquisition. The exit follows a pattern of US buyers snapping up Egyptian adtech, with Converted acquiring fashion marketplace Mitcha last month, and Miami-based Aleph acquired 86% of Connect Ads in 2021 in a dragon exit for A15.

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