Happy Friday, friends 👋

It's been a very long week (albeit an enjoyable one), so we're keeping this preamble shorter than usual.

First things first, it was fantastic to meet so many of you at both the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Festival and Web Summit in Doha this week. It was a stark reminder that each email address on our mailing list is actually a real person, which made clicking send today slightly more terrifying than usual!

In any case, being on the ground in Qatar was certainly helpful given the tsunami of announcements that dropped over Sunday and Monday. QIA announced a significant expansion of its fund-of-funds program from $1 billion to $3 billion, then disclosed they'll be backing another five VC firms (more details on each firm and their mandate here).

The standout was obviously Shorooq, who announced their $200 million growth fund targeting later-stage and pre-IPO companies. We'll unpack all of this in much greater depth in later deep-dives, along with Qatar's slightly divergent approach to catalysing its domestic startup and VC ecosystem compared to its Gulf peers.

Also, a quick note that our very good friends at AdalFi are hosting two executive roundtable discussions in Riyadh next week. The first covers what lenders need to know about open banking, the second explores what the future of MSME lending looks like in a Saudi context.

You can request to join both discussions below if you're interested. Seats are limited, so opt in sooner rather than later if you don't want to miss out!

This and much more below 👇

This week’s round-up is a 5 min read:

AdalFi is pulling together lending and banking execs in Riyadh next week for two working sessions on open banking and MSME credit infrastructure.

The format: small room, no presentations, structured conversation.

If you're building credit products in the Kingdom and want to compare notes with people solving similar problems, this is worth applying for. Seats are limited and require approval.

Request to join Feb 8 (Open Banking) | Request to join Feb 10 (MSME Lending)

Kitopi (🇦🇪 UAE), a cloud kitchen platform operating across five GCC markets, has raised $50M in growth capital, led by EvolutionX (a private credit platform by Temasek and DBS Bank), to scale its homegrown F&B brands across the region, and accelerate its international franchising strategy.

Qureos (🇦🇪 UAE), an AI-driven hiring platform that consolidates sourcing, screening, and interviewing into a single system, has raised $5M in a Seed round, led by Prosus Ventures and Salica Oryx Fund, with participation from Oraseya Capital, Plus VC, F6 Ventures, BDev Ventures, Sunny Side Venture Partners, and existing investors COTU Ventures and Globivest, to deepen its AI capabilities and accelerate geographic expansion.

SkipCash (🇶🇦 Qatar), a digital payments platform offering mobile-first and Tap-to-Phone solutions, has raised $4M in a Series A round, with participation from Qatar Development Bank, Qatar Islamic Insurance Company, KBN Holding Group, Finjan Venture Investments, Ula Capital, and Doha Tech Angels, to scale its smart payments infrastructure and expand across the GCC.

Daleel (🇦🇪 UAE), an AI-native real estate intelligence platform unifying verified government transaction data with live property listings across the GCC, has raised $3M in a pre-Seed round, from an angel investor, to accelerate product development and prepare for entry into Saudi.

HAQQ Legal AI (🇱🇧 Lebanon), a vertically integrated legal AI operating system, has raised $3M to date, led by Sowlutions Ventures, with participation from HITEK Ventures, Corona Legal, IM FNDNG, Highworth, Razor Capital, SYMAX, and Hamady Trust, to expand enterprise deployments across MENA.

Mersal Media Capital (🇸🇦 KSA), a media-focused investment platform targeting scalable digital media assets, has raised $1.3M in its first funding round, led by an unnamed private investment fund, to support growth, and build strategic partnerships in media asset development.

Viero (🇸🇦 KSA), a unified fleet and logistics platform combining delivery operations with financial governance, has raised $1.2M in a Seed round, led by Watheeq Capital and Share Investment Co., with participation from Numu Angel Network, Black Iris Angel Network, and angel investors, to accelerate product development and regional expansion.

MUHIDE (🇸🇦 KSA), a fintech platform dedicated to authenticating and governing B2B trade transactions, has closed a Series A round for an undisclosed amount, backed by Asyad Group, to expand its team, strengthen platform capabilities, and build Saudi's first unified trade ecosystem.

Hydrovest (🇶🇦 Qatar), a climate-smart agritech company developing hydroponic crops and value-added food products, has raised $275K, from unnamed investors, to move into commercial-scale production, and prepare for market entry into the UAE in Q4 2026.

📈 Shorooq has launched a $200M late-stage growth fund backed by QIA to plug the regional gap around pre-IPO and late-stage financing. The Qatalyst Series will target companies with proven unit economics and clear exit pathways across fintech infrastructure, software, AI, and regulated environments in MENA. The launch extends Shorooq's evolution into a full-stack platform spanning venture, credit, private equity, and real assets – last September it partnered with Abu Dhabi-listed Presight on a $100M AI fund – with founding partner Mahmoud Adi noting the firm can now support founders "from early conviction through to public market readiness."

💰 Qatar Investment Authority is increasing its Fund of Funds program from $1B to $3B, bringing in five new venture firms that will establish Doha offices (Greycroft, Ion Pacific, Liberty City Ventures, Shorooq, and Speedinvest) with an expanded mandate covering later-stage rounds beyond the original Series A/B focus. Qatar's Prime Minister announced the expansion at Web Summit Qatar alongside a new 10-year residency programme for entrepreneurs, investors, and senior executives – mirroring UAE and Saudi visa schemes – plus an eightfold increase in company formation incentives and cloud computing credits for AI startups.

🦄 Snoonu founder Hamad Al-Hajri is joining Rasmal Ventures and Shorooq as an LP following his recent exit to Saudi delivery giant Jahez (valued at $225 million for 75% of existing shares). Al-Hajri is backing Qatar's first VC firm Rasmal Ventures and committing to two Shorooq funds – the QIA-backed late-stage growth vehicle and the Presight-G42-supported AI fund – part of a broader trend of successful Gulf founders recycling exit capital back into the ecosystem. Hopefully more exits over the next two years precipitate more of this!

🏦 Bahrain-based open banking platform Tarabut has acquired Servable, a local AI engineering company built for regulated industries, for an undisclosed sum. The deal pushes Tarabut beyond open banking infrastructure into AI-driven financial decisioning – Servable's platform handles synthetic data generation, secure model training, and governed AI deployment for use cases like income verification, credit risk assessment, and fraud automation, all with built-in explainability and compliance controls. Tarabut, which raised $32 million in Series A from Pinnacle Capital, Visa, and Tiger Global in May 2023, now operates across Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE with regulatory approvals from SAMA and in-principle clearance from the UAE Central Bank.

📚 Jordan-based Alefredo EdTech has acquired UK tutoring platform Tutor House for $600k, bringing 30k+ tutors and 15k+ students into its ecosystem. The deal completes Alefredo's AI-driven learning stack combining curriculum-aligned tutoring, assessments, analytics, and adaptive learning paths while giving the Jordan startup distribution access to 4 million+ UK students for its British curriculum resources. Alefredo, founded in 2020 by Ahmad Al Saif and serves 20k+ users across 16 countries.

This week's guest is 44.01’s Talal Hasan, a lawyer turned venture capitalist turned climate tech founder who has spent the better part of a decade chasing a rather ambitious goal: turning carbon dioxide into rock. We get into the Peter Kelemen article that sparked the idea, how he raised $47M from the likes of Shorooq, Salica Investments amongst others, what it takes to convince the world that drilling into rock is actually the answer to climate change, and why transportation logistics might be the real constraint on scaling carbon removal globally.

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

🚗 Mubadala Capital has joined Waymo's $16 billion funding round led by Dragoneer, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital, backing Alphabet's autonomous driving unit as it scales driverless ride-hailing globally. Waymo, already operating in six US cities including San Francisco and Los Angeles (plus partnerships with Uber in Austin and Atlanta), will use the capital to maintain its safety edge while accelerating US expansion and launching in the UK later this year. The round included Andreessen Horowitz, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, T. Rowe Price, Temasek, and other blue-chip investors.

💾 QIA has made a strategic investment in Nevada-based AI chip startup Positron AI's $230 million Series B (valuing the company at $1 billion+), announced at Web Summit Qatar as part of the startup's strategic MENA expansion. Positron's CEO Mitesh Agrawal delivered the news personally in Doha after appointing ex-Microsoft/EY exec Husni Khuffash as MENA lead in December. The round was co-led by ARENA Private Wealth, Jump Trading, and Unless, with Arm Holdings also investing. Positron's next-gen Asimov chip (targeting late 2026 tape-out) promises 5x better energy efficiency and 6x more memory capacity than Nvidia's upcoming Rubin GPU.