Happy Friday, friends 👋

Welcome to the first weekly briefing of 2026, and thankfully we’re off to a rip-roaring start. But before we get into it, a very quick bit of housekeeping. For those of you who’ve been missing our regular schedule of long-form deep dives, fear not. They’ll be resuming from next Wednesday onwards, so keep an eye on your inbox next week.

Alrighty then, the Gulf’s sovereign wealth funds are already showing no sign of reduced appetite for US mega deals so far in 2026. Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi-based MGX both participated in Elon Musk’s xAI $20B Series E round. Per Semafor, Gulf sovereign funds more than doubled their US investments to a record $70B in 2025, with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund leading the charge at $29B, followed closely by Mubadala, which deployed $24B.

In fintech, Revolut continues to gather steam in the UAE, advertising new roles across compliance and risk through to Head of Marketing and Head of Growth. Earlier this week, it was also reported that Revolut is in discussions to acquire neobank FUPS, a move that would accelerate its entry into the Turkish market. It remains to be seen how the company will navigate its UAE banking licence process.

In public markets news, Saudi has announced that it will open its stock market to all foreign investors from February, in an effort to reverse the lacklustre performance of the exchange in 2025. The real test will be whether regulators ultimately revisit the 49% foreign ownership cap in 2026.

And finally, we highly recommend reading MEVP’s annual letter for 2025, which discloses several previously unannounced funding rounds, including investments in Stake, Ziina, and MealPlanet.

This and much more below 👇

This week’s round-up is a 5 min read:

eMushrif (🇴🇲 Oman), an IoT and AI-powered school transportation platform serving over 120k students across the public and private sectors, has raised $7.5M led by Jasoor Ventures with participation from Phaze Ventures, Annex Investment, Ithca Group and IDO Investment, to scale operations into KSA and the UAE.

Aamar (🇸🇦 KSA), a proptech startup automating leasing and asset-finance operations through an AI-powered platform for landlords and tenants, has closed a Seed round exceeding $4M from Aqar App, Razm Investment, Al Majdiah Investment and Blom Invest.

MilkStraw AI (🇦🇪 UAE), a cloud cost optimisation platform automating infrastructure management and resource allocation for startups and scaleups, has raised $2M in Seed funding led by VentureSouq with participation from Ibtikar Fund and M Capital, to expand its product suite with real-time visibility tools and scale adoption.

FitXpert (🇪🇬 Egypt), a vertical SaaS platform digitising operations for fitness trainers, nutrition centres and clinics through an all-in-one management interface, has secured a seven-figure strategic investment from Foras Investment.

Doushesh (🇸🇾 Syria), a digital classifieds marketplace organising the country's fragmented buying and selling landscape across verticals like real estate and vehicles, has closed a pre-Seed round to expand user adoption across Syria.

Business For Teens (🇪🇬 Egypt), an edtech startup delivering entrepreneurship and financial literacy programs to students aged 10–16, has raised a six-figure pre-Seed round led by Salah Abou Elmagd and angel investors, to expand and deepen school partnerships across Egypt and the GCC.

🤖 Bunat Ventures has partnered with Red Sea Global to launch a new AI-focused VC fund in Saudi Arabia. The team were previously early backers in CoinMENA (acquired for up to $240M) and Saudi unicorn Ninja. The fund will invest in early and growth-stage companies that are either AI-native or use AI as a core component of their business models, and plans to back around 25 startups through a mix of pre-seed and growth-stage investments over the next three years. Founded in 2022 by Khaled Zainalabedin and Khalid Saad, Bunat Ventures operates a hybrid model that combines a venture studio with an operational VC approach.

🔎 MEVP has published its annual end-of-year letter, and it’s a treasure trove of insight, including several funding rounds that have not yet been publicly announced or disclosed. In 2025, the firm deployed $18.1M across 8 new investments and 2 follow on investments, while completing the final close of its fourth fund at $102.5M in May. More detail on the number of unannounced rounds MEVP participated in here.

🏗️ Revolut continues to assemble its regional team under the stewardship of Ambareen Musa, advertising fresh roles spanning compliance and risk through to a Head of Marketing and Head of Growth. This follows the fintech unicorn receiving in-principle approval for a UAE payments licence back in September 2025, positioning the London-headquartered player to roll out a broader suite of financial services to UAE retail customers. Earlier this week, it was also reported that Revolut is in discussions to acquire FUPS, a move that would accelerate its entry into the Turkish market. It remains to be seen how the company navigates the lengthy banking licence process in the UAE, and whether further M&A could feature as part of that strategy.

🇯🇴 Egypt’s Valu has secured the required licensing from the Central Bank of Jordan, to finalise the regulatory groundwork for a Q1 2026 launch that will establish the Walid Hassouna led fintech’s first major operational foothold outside its home market. The firm has also hired former Jordanian investment minister Mothanna Gharaibeh to lead the push. The expansion follows the BNPL outfit’s 2025 IPO on the EGX and strategic investment from Amazon. The company’s share price is up over 16% over the past 6 months.

💳 Ziina has officially set its sights on evolving from a P2P payments utility into a lifestyle focused “super app” with the launch of Violet, a premium subscription tier that echoes the global neobank bundled lifestyle playbook (think Revolut). Priced at AED 100 per month, Violet bundles zero currency fees with familiar global perks such as NordVPN and ClassPass, alongside hyper-local partnerships including CAFU and Washmen. By monetising high-frequency, everyday spending, Ziina should be able to capture granular data on user behaviour, in effect laying the groundwork to eventually layer on higher margin financial products such as credit and insurance further down the line.

🇶🇦🇦🇪 xAI has closed a $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding its original $15 billion target, with participation from the Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. Other participants in the round include Valor Equity Partners, StepStone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, and Baron Capital Group. Strategic investors NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also joined the round, with capital earmarked primarily for compute expansion and next-generation model training. The Series E follows a pattern of sustained follow-on investment by QIA, which has emerged as one of xAI’s most consistent backers. QIA first entered xAI’s cap table in November 2024 during the company’s $6 billion Series C round, which valued xAI at approximately $50 billion.

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia will open its stock market to all foreign investors on February 1st, as The Kingdom seeks to deepen the liquidity needed to finance its economic diversification. While the Tadawul rallied on the news, the immediate impact may be muted because major institutional players have had access since 2015 and recently paused new allocations in favour of better returns elsewhere. The true test of The Kingdom's global ambition now rests on whether regulators follow through on lifting the 49% foreign ownership cap later this year, a structural shift necessary to drive the significant inflows required for future state share sales.

🇺🇸 According to Semafor, Gulf sovereign funds more than doubled their US investments to a record $70 billion in 2025, exemplifying a clear prioritisation and preference for American AI assets and financial alignment with President Trump’s economic roadmap. PIF led this capital surge with its $29 billion acquisition of Electronic Arts, followed by Mubadala, which invested $24 billion – collectively helping push the US share of Gulf dealmaking to 59% even as lower oil prices tightened budgets elsewhere.