Happy Friday, friends 👋

It’s not often you see a new market launch unfold in real time, but this week, daydreaming out the window of my co-working space in Abu Dhabi, I spotted a gleaming yellow uniform and delivery box on the back of a motorbike and did a double take. Then another.

It was inevitable, of course, that Keeta would come for Abu Dhabi too. Anecdotally, from what I’ve noticed first hand on the ground, their fleet is out in force and expanding at an unprecedented pace. The front parking areas of apartment buildings I pass on my commute now seem evenly split between Talabat, Careem, Keeta, and Noon.

The allure of their onboarding discounts is immense. I, like many others, have been converted for now in spite of a soft spot for Careem. Will it last beyond the expiry of those new customer offers? Right now, I’d say unlikely, but who knows. In Saudi, the first casualty of the food delivery wars has already emerged, with Shgardi shutting down citing intense competition and market “price dumping.”

To say HUMAIN were busy at FII in Riyadh this past week would be an understatement. We have a full round up of their announcements and partnerships here.

And Tabby has boosted its valuation by a further than $1.2 billion, only eight months after announcing its Series E round, through a secondary share sale snapped up by HSG and Boyu Capital.

And if you missed this Wednesday’s edition, make sure you check out the publication of the inaugural FWDstart MENA Diaspora 50 list. Many thanks for all the positive comments and kind feedback so far!

This and more below 👇

This week’s round-up is a 5 min read:

UnifyApps (🇦🇪 UAE / 🇮🇳 India), an enterprise platform simplifying AI integration across corporate systems, has raised $50M Series B led by WestBridge Capital with participation from ICONIQ Capital and others, bringing total funding to $81M. The company will use the funds to expand its Gulf teams and scale its “Enterprise Operating System for AI,” which unifies data, workflows, and models for major clients including Abu Dhabi Department of Government Enablement, Digital Dubai Authority, and Air Arabia.

BRKZ (🇸🇦 KSA), a contech startup digitising procurement and financing for the construction sector, has secured up to $30M in growth debt from Stride Ventures to expand its embedded financing and flexible payment solutions across Saudi Arabia, bringing total funding to over $52M.

Squadio (🇸🇦 KSA), an HRtech platform connecting companies with vetted global tech talent, has raised $3M pre-Series A from Wa’ed Ventures, 500 Sanabil MENA, Nour Nouf Ventures, SEEDRA Ventures, and NTDP to enhance its AI matching engine and expand across MENA, Africa, and Silicon Valley.

Logexa (🇸🇦 KSA), a logistics tech company optimising underused warehousing and transport capacity, has raised $2M pre-Series A led by SEEDRA Ventures with participation from Nour Nouf Ventures and angel investors to scale operations and launch a digital logistics marketplace.

Velents.ai (🇸🇦 KSA), an HRtech and enterprise AI startup, has raised $1.5M from angel investors including executives from Google and BCG to scale its Arabic-speaking AI employee, Agent.sa, and expand its enterprise AI solutions.

rmz.ai (🇸🇦 KSA), a generative AI platform for creators, has closed a $100K pre-seed round led by Beyond.xyz to develop “Creative Agents” that automate content workflows across image, video, and audio production.

Najeeb.ai (🇸🇦 KSA), an insurtech platform integrating AI into automotive and health insurance, has raised an undisclosed pre-seed round from regional angel investors to develop new AI products and expand integrations with insurers and healthcare networks.

WTDcare (🇸🇦 KSA), a healthtech startup offering digital ambulance and home care services, has raised a pre-seed round led by the Riyadh Group of Individual Investors, with angel participation, to enhance its tech infrastructure and expand non-emergency medical transport and digital healthcare coverage across Saudi Arabia.

🧬 Goldtrack Ventures has launched a $250 million industrial biotech growth fund in Saudi Arabia. Announced at the Global Health Exhibition in Riyadh, the fund will file with the CMA by late 2025 and start investing in 2026. It targets industrial applications across red, green, white, yellow, grey, blue, and golden biotech sectors, with a focus on bio-based materials, agri-tech, and sustainable solutions.

💳 SAB Invest has partnered with Stride Ventures to bring growth-debt and private-credit solutions to Saudi startups and SMEs. The collaboration marks SAB Invest’s move into startup-focused investing and enables Stride to expand into the Kingdom alongside one of its largest institutional investors. The alliance will provide Shariah-compliant, non-dilutive financing across fintech, B2B SaaS, health tech, logistics, and consumer brands. Stride plans to deploy $500 million over the next 3–5 years, while SAB Invest, managing over SAR 36 billion AUM, continues to broaden its private-credit platform.

🤖 HUMAIN, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF)-backed AI company, announced a series of major developments in its quest to build a full-stack AI ecosystem – spanning chips, data centres, software, and industrial deployment:

💸 Tabby, Saudi Arabia’s leading fintech, has completed a secondary share sale at a $4.5 billion valuation, up from $3.3 billion in its February 2025 Series E. The transaction, which included participation from HSG, Boyu Capital, and others, involved no new shares or primary proceeds but signals continued global investor confidence in the company’s growth and profitability trajectory. Founded by Hosam Arab, Tabby has become the most valuable fintech in MENA, offering flexible payment and credit products to millions across Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

💼 HALA Capital (formerly HALA Ventures) has officially launched as a CMA-licensed private capital firm, expanding beyond venture investing into Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Private Credit. Founded in 2018 by Ali Abussaud and Hussain Almarhoon, the move marks its evolution into a full-spectrum private capital platform designed to bridge early-stage innovation with institutional-scale investment.

💳 Ziina has launched Ziina Card, its first Visa-powered digital card, giving users instant access to spend their Ziina balance via Apple Wallet. The UAE-based fintech, which offers both acquiring and issuing, says the launch turns incoming payments into immediate spending power, eliminating delays and cash-outs. Building on its Tap to Pay rollout earlier this year, the move completes Ziina’s ecosystem for instant receive-and-spend payments.

🍱 Keeta, the international arm of China’s Meituan, has officially launched in Abu Dhabi, marking its next phase of UAE expansion after launching in Dubai last month. The platform, backed by Meituan’s delivery tech is following its established Gulf playbook offering new users up to 50% off through launch vouchers.

🍔 Shgardi, a Saudi food-delivery app, has permanently shut down operations, citing intense competition and market “price dumping.” (👀) Launched in 2020 with SAR 12 million in capital, Shgardi completed over seven million orders and served more than three million customers across 35 cities and provinces before arguably becoming the first casualty of Keeta’s aggressive market entry. The company had previously explored a capital increase and Nomu-Parallel Market listing in 2021 with Watheeq Capital as adviser.

💼 Kamco Invest, the Kuwaiti investment firm, has acquired a stake in Unifonic, a Saudi SaaS provider, as part of its push into the Kingdom’s fast-growing tech sector. Founded in 2006, Unifonic builds multi-channel customer-engagement tools for clients across finance, government, healthcare, retail, and transport. The company has raised over $140 million from investors including Sanabil Investments, SoftBank, STV, SVC, and Raed Ventures, most recently a $125 million round in 2022, and is now preparing for a potential Tadawul IPO. Back in July Kamco also announced an undisclosed investment in Foodics.

🌍 Silicon Badia has led a $2.5 million pre-seed round for US-based fintech MidLyr. Founded in 2025 by Wael Elsahhar and Ruochen Ren, MidLyr enables banks to translate policy text into compliant AI workflows, automating key processes such as issue resolution, risk reviews, and marketing compliance within regulatory boundaries. The funding will accelerate product development, expand partnerships with banks and fintechs, and support hiring across the US and Middle East.

🇦🇪 Mubadala Capital and Valor Equity Partners have co-led Crusoe’s $1.375 billion Series E, valuing the US-based AI infrastructure firm at over $10 billion. The oversubscribed round will accelerate Crusoe’s expansion of its vertically integrated AI infrastructure model, spanning energy sourcing, data center development, and AI cloud services.

🇸🇦 Beta Lab, the Saudi deep tech investor, has joined France-based Nutropy’s $8.1 million round to back its development of precision-fermented dairy proteins that replicate real cheese without cows. The startup engineers microorganisms to produce casein, the key protein behind cheese’s stretch and melt, and plans to launch its animal-free cheese products globally by 2027.

📌 From MENA to the World: Is this the birth of the Arab Renaissance? (Amir Farha)

📌 How Mercado Libre, Careem, and Paystack built global companies VCs didn’t see coming (Endeavor)

📌 How to Keep Winning (Amjad Masad)