Happy Friday, friends 👋

Money20/20. That’s it, that’s the tweet. But in all seriousness, being on the ground this past week was equal parts whirlwind and amazing – far more fun than trying to groggily round up and summarise everything announced over the past few days at the crack of dawn this morning. Once we hit publish on this week’s edition, we’ll be crawling into a dark space for at least 24 hours.

The headline stealer this week was undoubtedly Tamara’s asset-backed facility, an initial $1.4B with potential to rise to $2.4B. Backers include Goldman Sachs (extending a previous $500M facility), Citi, and Apollo. It’s a stark contrast to BNPL’s fortunes elsewhere, especially given last week’s rather muted IPO of Klarna, which only underscores the bullishness of investors on the model in a GCC context.

HALA (once upon a time a B2C play called Halalah, as I learned this week) announced a $157M Series B co-led by TPG’s Rise Fund and Sanabil Investments, with an exceedingly lengthy list of other backers. This has been brewing for quite a while, with The Information first reporting TPG’s involvement back in May 2024, but as often happens, regional funding news can take an inordinate length of time to surface publicly.

Unsurprisingly funding is dominated by fintechs across the board, from Lendo’s $50M murhaba facility to open banking platform Spare’s $5M pre-Series A. We counted more than 23 deals in total (!)

Elsewhere, ride-hailing giant inDrive has launched in Riyadh; STV and Wamid are teaming up to create a secondary marketplace for Saudi startups and SMEs; Talabat resumed operations in Qatar after a one-week suspension over allegedly misleading consumers; and Abu Dhabi’s MGX, alongside Silver Lake, has acquired 51% of California chipmaker Altera in a $3.3B deal.

We advise reading this one online 👇

This week’s round-up is an 7 min read:

Tamara (🇸🇦 KSA), a Riyadh-based BNPL fintech that enables consumers to split payments across online and offline merchants, is set to secure at least $1.4B in an asset-backed financing deal anchored by Goldman Sachs, Apollo Global Management, and Citigroup, with commitments potentially rising to $2.4B.

HALA (🇸🇦 KSA), a fintech providing SME banking and freelancer solutions including business accounts, payments, POS systems, corporate cards, and lending products, has raised $157M in Series B funding co-led by The Rise Fund (TPG) and Sanabil Investments, with participation from QED, Raed Ventures, Impact 46, MEVP, Isometry Capital, Arzan VC, BNVT Capital, Kaltaire Investments, Endeavor Catalyst, Nour Nouf Ventures, Khwarizmi Ventures, and Wamda Capital.

Lendo (🇸🇦 KSA), a crowdlending marketplace that connects SMEs with investors for short-term financing, has secured a $50M Murabaha facility from Jadwa GCC Private Credit Fund, managed by Jadwa Investment, to boost SME lending capacity.

Bwatech (🇸🇦 KSA), a fintech platform for digital bank guarantees, account management, and open-banking services for corporates, has raised $16M led by Sharaka Financial to accelerate growth and expand market presence.

Clarity (🇦🇪 UAE), an AI-powered customer-experience and voice-of-customer (VoC) platform for regulated industries, has raised $12 million in a funding round led by Prosus Ventures, with participation from STV Al Fund (backed by Google), Sukna Ventures, Wamda Capital, Neo, Oraseya Capital, Phaze Ventures, Propeller, Tech Invest Com, and angels from OpenAI and Google.

Rihal (🇴🇲 Oman), an enterprise SaaS provider specialising in data, software, and AI serving key sectors including government, logistics, telecom, and oil & gas, has closed a $7.5M first close in a $15M Series A led by ITHCA Group.

Spare (🇸🇦 KSA), an open-banking infrastructure fintech offering account-data APIs, account-to-account payments, identity verification, risk scoring, and recurring payments, has raised $5M in a pre-Series A round led by anb Seed Fund with participation from 500 MENA, Vision Ventures, SEEDRA Ventures, MEVP, Boubyan Ventures, and others.

LDUN (🇸🇦 KSA), a fintech providing tech-enabled factoring solutions that streamline trade credit between suppliers and retailers for MSMEs, has raised $4.8M in seed funding led by Sadu Capital with Suhail Ventures and Nomu Angel Investment.

Sindbad.Tech (🇸🇦 KSA), an AI-powered algorithmic-trading fintech, has raised a $4.8M Seed round led by Alkhabeer Capital to scale automated investment solutions.

Amaani (🇦🇪 UAE), a beauty and wellness platform blending regional heritage ingredients with clinical actives, has raised $3M in seed funding led by Peak XV’s Surge.

Nucleon Security (🇲🇦 Morocco / 🇫🇷 France), a cybersecurity startup offering AI-powered endpoint detection and response solutions, has raised $3.5M led by NewFund Capital with participation from 212Founders, LoftyInc, Orange Ventures, and Axian Group, to expand across Africa and scale its Zero Trust and AI-driven platforms.

MoneyMoon (🇸🇦 KSA), a Sharia-compliant Murabaha-based P2P lending platform operating under SAMA’s sandbox, has raised $2.9M pre-Series A led by Core Vision with family offices and angels.

Oumla (🇸🇦 KSA), a digital-asset infrastructure provider offering custody/management, blockchain connectivity, and tokenisation platforms for financial and real-estate assets, has raised a $2.4M seed round led by Core Vision with participation from Avalanche and angels.

Done.ma (🇲🇦 Morocco), a consumer super-app in the making expanding beyond food delivery, has raised a $2.1M seed round from local and business-angel investors to build a homegrown Moroccan super-app.

Oncount (🇦🇪 UAE), an AI accounting platform for SMBs, has raised $1.5M in seed funding led by tech entrepreneur Sergey Panov to launch and go-to-market in the UAE.

Bynow (🇸🇦 KSA), a B2B BNPL and payments startup helping SMEs manage cash flow with deferred payments and digitised AR/AP workflows, has raised $1.2M from Merak Capital.

Fintologya (🇧🇭 Bahrain/GCC), a fintech infrastructure startup building secure, modular, cloud-native payments platforms for banks and fintechs across the GCC, has raised $1M in seed funding led by a Gulf holding company.

Armoir (🇦🇪 UAE), a premium luggage startup inspired by French wardrobe trunks, has raised a $500K seed round led by Salica Oryx Fund with participation from Plus VC and global angels.

Wadaie (🇸🇦 KSA), a fintech offering a platform to connect depositors with all Saudi banks for Shariah-compliant time deposits without opening multiple accounts, has closed a seed round led by VentureSouq with participation from Graphene Ventures, RZM Investments, Arab National Bank, and Alinma Bank (amount undisclosed).

Zahib (🇸🇦 KSA), a tech-enabled logistics startup modernising Saudi Arabia’s laundry market through end-to-end scheduling, tracking, and operational tools for providers and consumers, has secured a seed round from an undisclosed angel investor.

Jobzyn (🇲🇦 Morocco), an AI recruitment platform that matches candidates to roles, assesses soft skills pre-interview, and provides employers insights like salary benchmarks and workplace images, has raised an undisclosed investment from Janngo Capital to scale its AI-powered recruitment solutions across Africa.

Qashio (🇦🇪 UAE / 🇸🇦 KSA), a spend-management and corporate cards platform giving businesses visibility and control of expenses, has received a strategic investment from Alinma Bank to co-develop solutions for SME and corporate clients (amount undisclosed).

LRNOVA (🇪🇬 Egypt → 🇸🇦 KSA focus), an AI platform that converts curricula/training into interactive digital content with multilingual avatars and virtual tutors, has received a strategic investment from EdVentures via its EdTech Venture Studio (amount undisclosed).

📱 Google Pay has officially launched in Saudi Arabia, enabling Android users to make tap-to-pay transactions in stores and soon across apps and the web. The service, integrated with the national mada payment system, allows users to add and manage mada, Visa, and Mastercard cards within Google Wallet, which also stores items like loyalty cards, tickets, and boarding passes. Google Pay is initially available to customers of Al Rajhi Bank and Riyad Bank, with additional banks to follow.

💳 Ant International will roll out Alipay+ in Saudi Arabia in 2026, enabling local merchants to accept cross-border QR code payments through the Kingdom’s mada system. The integration connects Saudi SMEs to Alipay+’s network of 1.7B wallet users across 70 markets. The launch follows Ant opening its first Middle East office in Riyadh and securing a PTSP licence for its Antom merchant payment solution earlier this year.

🚖 inDrive has launched its ride-hailing service in Riyadh, its second Saudi city. inDrive is unique in enabling riders propose a price and drivers can accept, reject, or counter, with service fees 2–3× lower than industry norms. The world’s second most-downloaded ride-hailing app, inDrive has topped charts in Morocco, Egypt, and Algeria, and is expanding a modular super-app anchored in daily services like grocery, mobility, courier, and fintech.

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia’s PIF-backed AI firm HUMAIN is in early talks with Blackstone and BlackRock over a potential multi-billion dollar partnership to finance data centres and related infrastructure. Founded in May with a $10B HUMAIN Ventures fund, the company has already broken ground on its first Saudi data centres, due online in 2026, and is targeting 1.9GW capacity by 2030. HUMAIN is procuring chips from Nvidia, counts Qualcomm and Cisco as partners, and is also in discussions with Elon Musk’s xAI on a local data centre deal.

📺 Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has acquired a 54% stake in MBC Group for $1.9B, buying out Istedamah Holding (a Finance Ministry subsidiary) at SAR 41.60 per share. The deal cements PIF’s position in MENA’s largest media group, which runs 19 TV channels and the Shahid streaming platform, and comes as MBC shifts its HQ from Dubai to Riyadh.

💳 Saudi fintech SILQFi has launched Omni, a platform integrating financing tools directly into SME operations, following its acquisition of local point-of-sale player OXO. Omni combines POS, payments, purchasing, and instant credit access in one interface, serving OXO’s base of 10,000+ merchants who have processed over SAR 7B in transactions.

💊 Egypt-based healthtech Duaya has acquired SaaS provider EXMGO in a six-figure deal, rebranding it as Duaya Go to offer pharmacies branded apps and websites for online sales, inventory, and payments. Founded in 2021 by Ahmed Fazara, Duaya already works with 500+ suppliers and 12,000 clients, targeting 25,000 by year-end and expansion into the GCC in 2026.

📈 Wamid, the tech arm of Saudi Tadawul Group, has partnered with STV to build a trading platform for shares in private companies, creating a secondary market for the Kingdom’s startup and SME ecosystem. The electronic platform will allow investors and founders to buy and sell stakes in private firms, expanding liquidity and access to capital. For Saudi, it’s a step toward deepening capital markets infrastructure and diversifying financing options in line with Vision 2030.

💳 Saudi investment firm S60 Ventures has launched the S60 Accelerator in partnership with Fintech Saudi. The founder-focused programme will back seed-stage fintech and fintech-adjacent startups. The launch follows S60’s $100M fintech venture fund unveiled earlier this year, marking the next step in its bid to scale Saudi’s fintech ecosystem.

⚡ Abu Dhabi’s MGX, the G42- and Mubadala-backed AI investment firm, has co-invested with Silver Lake to acquire 51% of California chipmaker Altera in a $3.3B deal. Altera, sold by Intel at a steep discount to its 2015 purchase price, makes reprogrammable semiconductors used in robots, cloud servers, and telecom gear. MGX and Silver Lake previously teamed up on a minority stake in G42’s Khazna data centre unit earlier this year.

🏗️ Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia) has invested $1.6B alongside Singapore’s GIC into US-based Vantage Data Centers to fund its Asia-Pacific expansion. The capital will finance the acquisition of a 300MW hyperscale campus in Johor’s Sedenak Tech Park, taking Vantage’s Apac capacity to 1GW amid soaring AI-driven demand. Adia has been steadily building out digital infrastructure bets, including a $2B data centre strategy with SC Capital Partners launched in 2022.

🛠️ Propeller has backed Codemod, an enterprise code transformation platform turning months-long migrations into automated, trackable workflows. Built by ex-Meta, Brex, and Shopify engineers, Codemod blends an open-source engine (ast-grep) with an enterprise layer for planning, guardrails, and rollbacks, supporting 17+ languages and integrating with frameworks like React, Node.js, and Nuxt.

🍲 Talabat has resumed operations in Qatar after a one-week suspension ordered by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry for misleading consumers. The food delivery firm, listed on the Dubai Financial Market, said it worked with regulators to implement internal measures and that the direct financial impact was immaterial. The closure followed repeated violations and complaints, with authorities stressing tighter oversight of consumer protection. Talabat, majority-owned by Delivery Hero, recently posted Q2 revenue of $982M (+35% YoY) and net income of $119M (+33%).