Happy Friday friends 👋

Plenty to sink our teeth into this week, starting with one for the VCs among us. Saudi Arabia’s CMA is consulting on proposals that would require VC and PE funds to give investors more detailed information on individual holdings, valuations and realised returns, extending its disclosure reforms into private markets. Everything you need to be aware of here.

Over in Egypt, MNT-Halan has had a slow and steady first week on the public markets with its shares closing yesterday at EGP25, just above its EGP24.50 offer price, having finished their debut at EGP26.12. So, most of the initial gains gone, then, although the EGX30 being down 3.4% yesterday hardly provided a helpful backdrop.

Elsewhere, Property Finder, Fresha and eyewa backer General Atlantic is eyeing a 2027 IPO at up to $10 billion, while we’ve been speaking to Huspy about its ambitions to take on Europe’s property market, and Robinhood is setting up its regional headquarters in DIFC ahead of a planned 2027 launch. One suspects the announcement won’t have escaped the teams at Sarwa, Thndr and baraka.

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This and much (much) more below 👇

This week’s round-up is a 7 min read:

Vrtx (🇸🇦 KSA), an embedded-finance platform that lets businesses launch wallets, payouts and cards, has raised $3.6M in a pre-seed backed by SC Ventures and Sadu Capital.

Nabta Health (🇦🇪 UAE), a hybrid women's health platform now moving into employer healthcare, has added Phoenix Venture Partners to its ongoing $3M pre-Series A in a second close of fresh equity and secondary purchases.

Vitalls (🇦🇪 UAE), a digital health passport for storing and sharing medical records across providers and countries, has secured a $1.5M seed commitment from Singapore's EST Growmore, with an option for a further $1M.

Fundbot (🇦🇪 UAE), a supply chain finance platform used by banks and insurers to lend to SMEs in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, has raised $1.1M in a follow-on seed led by MEVP and Salica Investments, with Hub71 joining as a new investor.

CapQuest (🇦🇪 UAE), an equity and cap-table management platform used by startups in 11 countries, has raised $1M in a pre-seed led by Oraseya Capital and AMKM Family Office.

Popcorn Studio AI (🇦🇪 UAE), an Egyptian-founded AI video-production platform built around Arabic content, has raised $1M in a pre-seed led by Mohammed Bin Bouta Alharsoosi.

Ayan (🇦🇪 UAE), which tracks and improves how brands appear in AI-generated answers, has raised $600K in a pre-seed from international angels.

theQA (🇰🇼 Kuwait), a consumer-research platform pairing AI-assisted surveys with a panel of more than 20,000 verified participants, has raised over $550K in a pre-seed from a Kuwaiti family office and angels.

INVE (🇸🇦 KSA), an event-management platform expanding from personal celebrations into business events, has raised $300K in a pre-seed led by Outliers VC.

Aqar Exit (🇪🇬 Egypt), a platform for transferring property contracts between buyers, has sold a 10% stake to Ayman Mamdouh Abbas for $200K at a $2M valuation.

Tactful AI (🇪🇬 Egypt), a customer-service AI company, has received an undisclosed pre-Series A extension from former e& group CEO Hatem Dowidar ahead of a planned 2027 Series A.

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Draft rules would require venture capital and private equity funds to give investors details of individual holdings and realised returns, alongside broader reforms to Saudi capital markets.

🇦🇪 CNTXT AI is opening its first US office after reporting $300M in committed revenue, with plans to hire a commercial team of 15–25 people in Milpitas, California. The Abu Dhabi company, which raised $60M from AI71 and BlueFive Capital in June, says 90% of its clients are already in Silicon Valley. Its business spans Arabic voice technology and data used to train robots on everyday physical tasks. The expansion puts it closer to existing customers, with the $300M figure representing commitments rather than recognised revenue.

🇺🇸 General Atlantic is targeting a listing in the first half of 2027 at a valuation of up to $10B. The growth investor has a substantial regional connection through holdings including Property Finder and eyewa. It opened an Abu Dhabi office in December 2024, when it said it had invested more than $1B across MENAT since 2012. The proposed IPO would help finance its expansion as large private-capital managers compete to build broader investment businesses. Full story here.

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia has postponed its flagship FII conference until 2027. The event had been scheduled for October 26–29, bringing global investors and executives to Riyadh. The decision follows mounting security concerns after attacks on the Kingdom, with organisers saying revised dates will be announced. It removes one of the region’s biggest fundraising and dealmaking gatherings from this year’s calendar.

🇦🇪 Robinhood has announced that it’s establishing its regional headquarters in DIFC and plans to launch in 2027, after receiving DFSA authorisation to introduce its investing platform from Dubai. The approval covers trading and custody across ten asset classes, including equities, ETFs, crypto and investment tokens. Salah Kaddoura will lead the MENA business. Robinhood hasn’t disclosed local pricing or the precise launch offering, leaving those details to determine how directly it competes with the region’s existing investing apps like Sarwa, Thndr, Baraka etc.

🇦🇪 Ziina has secured a Retail Payment Services Category III licence, broadening its authorisation across merchant acquiring, payment aggregation and domestic transfers. The company also disclosed exchange-business authorisation granted in August, allowing international transfers through digital channels alongside its existing wallet licence. Ziina says it serves more than 500,000 customers annually and processes over $1.5B in annualised payment volume. Together, the approvals support its expansion across holding, spending, accepting and sending money.

📉 MNT-Halan has given back most of its first-day gains, closing Thursday at EGP 25 against an EGP 24.50 offer price after debuting at EGP 26.12. The EGP 7.84B sale was Egypt’s largest IPO in dollar terms since 2021, with the institutional tranche 11.2 times subscribed and retail covered 43.6 times on more than 41,500 orders, drawing combined demand of roughly EGP 126B. Thursday’s 3.1% fall came as the EGX30 dropped 3.4%, and volume thinned from 47.7 million shares on debut to 5.6 million.

🇵🇸 Palestinian-founded Databuddy Analytics has secured $500K from Y Combinator, taking total funding above $560K alongside backing from Maza Ventures and the a16z Scout programme. Founded by Issa Nassar, the US-based startup builds software that investigates conversion drops, customer friction and product problems, bringing findings directly to teams. It says more than 3,000 businesses have adopted the platform in its first few months. The funding will support additional integrations, hiring and more advanced automated investigations.

🇶🇦 Snoonu has acquired US food-discovery startup BiteSight in its first international acquisition, bringing the Y Combinator-backed company’s product, brand and technology into its platform. Founded in 2023 by UT Austin alumni Lucious McDaniel IV and Zac Schulwolf, BiteSight pairs short-form food videos with restaurant discovery and ordering, once hitting No. 2 in the US App Store’s Food & Drink category, ahead of Uber Eats and McDonald’s, after a founder’s TikTok went viral, passing 150K downloads. It had raised $1.5M from YC, SurgePoint Capital and angels including Airbnb and Starbucks executives. The founders will relocate to Qatar to build the product for regional markets. Terms weren’t disclosed.

After exiting ifood.jo and POSRocket, Zeid Husban is back with SPICE, a Saudi dining platform that gives restaurants cash upfront in exchange for dining credit. We get into how the model works, why it offers diners 20% cashback, and what building a third startup has taught him.