Happy Friday, friends 👋

A big week, and plenty to unpack, starting with some M&A.

US-based DataCamp is acquiring UAE-based Optima in a deal valued at more than $15 million. Optima, founded two years ago by Yusuf Saber, built proprietary adaptive learning technology that personalises lesson pace, explanations, and feedback in real time based on each learner’s profile. The company previously raised $1.1M in seed funding from Amir Farha’s COTU Ventures along with a roster of prominent angels, and built a strong customer base that includes talabat, Careem, Kitopi, and others.

Saber will join DataCamp as Chief AI Officer and will lead global AI operations from Dubai, with Optima’s tech rolling out across DataCamp’s entire product suite over the next six months. Great to see a deal grounded in genuine tech rather than pure distribution or regional foothold!

Elsewhere, it’s results season. We break down Jahez’s Q3 after its share price hit an all-time low last week. We also look at talabat’s strong Q3 and give a quick read on how InstaShop, acquired by talabat in March 2025, is performing. TL;DR: struggling to keep pace.

Separately, Tamara has also released Q3 financials, which we dig into in more detail here.

This and much more below 👇

This week’s round-up is a 5 min read:

Petal Group (🇮🇪 Ireland / 🇦🇪 UAE), a floral e-commerce company operating across Ireland and the UAE, has secured an $18M equity investment from Quintas Capital to drive acquisitions and global expansion under its technology-led retail portfolio.

Hawala (🇪🇬 Egypt), a fintech startup building global financial infrastructure for MENA, has raised $3M pre-seed led by Pharsalus Capital and Alumni Ventures, with participation from Naguib Sawiris, Hany Rashwan, and others, to scale its platform connecting users to global banking access and launch new products including the Hawala Card.

Rased (🇸🇦 KSA), an AI-powered fraud detection and prevention platform, has raised a pre-Seed round led by Wa’ed Ventures and Share Investment, to expand its real-time fraud monitoring and compliance solutions for banks and fintechs.

Workey (🇸🇦 KSA), a business solutions platform offering digital workspace bookings and investor services, has received an undisclosed investment from Falak Investment Hub to launch its first version and develop AI-powered business tools.

🚀 Kuwait’s Kamco Invest and TechInvest are launching The JEDI Opportunity Fund, a USD 100–150M vehicle that will back high-performing startups, including select winners from their earlier USD 45M JEDI Fund. The first fund focused heavily on Silicon Valley tech, and the new vehicle will double down on the top performers as the two firms extend their partnership. The first JEDI Fund has significantly outperformed many of its 2022-vintage global peers, delivering a 1.3x gross MOIC. TechInvest CEO Fahad AlSharekh confirmed the plan at MoneyTech Summit 2025 but did not disclose a launch date.

🌏 Crescent Enterprises’ investment arm, CE-Invests, will deploy AED 1 billion over the next three years across India, Southeast Asia, and the GCC, targeting minority stakes in mid-sized companies valued between AED 75–200M. The capital will go into consumer, healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services through a mix of direct deals and fund allocations. The move follows CE’s recent activity, including backing Flipspaces’ $50M round and launching a $68M programme to scale its venture-building arm CE-Creates.

📦 Binbar Investment and Joa Capital have launched Marhoon Fund, a $133M vehicle offering Saudi companies a new form of asset-backed financing secured by long-term lease and usufruct contracts (the right to use a property without owning it). The fund gives growth-stage and asset-heavy businesses a non-dilutive alternative to bank loans, letting them borrow against the leased spaces or facilities they already operate from. It marks one of the first attempts to turn Saudi Arabia’s now standardised digital lease contracts into collateral businesses can actually fund expansion with.

🦅 Saudi Arabia’s Takamol Holding has invested in Vision Ventures’ Saqr Fund II, which is targeting a $90 million raise to back early-stage startups from pre-Seed to pre-Series B across Saudi Arabia and MENA. The size of Takamul’s commitment was not disclosed. The fund focuses on fintech, e-commerce, SaaS, cybersecurity, and AI, with a strong emphasis on the Saudi market. Vision Ventures, founded in 2016 by Haitham BuAisha and Kais Al-Essa, is one of the region’s most active early-stage investors.

🌱 Ventures Platform has secured USD 64 million in the first close of its VP Pan-African Fund II, targeting a USD 75 million final close. The fund will double down on seed investing, catalyse Series A rounds, and back startups solving non-consumption and infrastructure gaps across fintech, healthtech, agritech, edtech, and AI. LPs include Nigeria’s iDICE program, IFC, BII, Proparco, MSMEDA, AfricaGrow, European family offices, and global investors such as Michael Seibel. The fund has already made two investments in Egypt; MoneyHash and Voom.

📈 Tamara swung to a SAR 92.4m profit in 9M 2025 (from a SAR 164m loss) as revenue from instalment payments more than doubled, helped by a larger merchant network, new Islamic financing products, and a surge in customer fees. Costs rose, but the company slashed its loan-loss charges, which lifted margins and pushed profitability sharply higher. Q3 followed the same trend, with Tamara earning SAR 28m (vs. a loss last year), even though profit dipped slightly from Q2. Equity is now up to SAR 450m and accumulated losses have fallen to SAR 133m

💳 SAMA has officially licensed Tabby as a BNPL provider, expanding the roster of licensed finance companies in Saudi Arabia to 68, while also adding Darb Pay as a new e-wallet provider, bringing the number of authorised payments firms to 28.

✍️ US-based DataCamp has acquired UAE-founded Optima in a deal worth more than $15 million (AED 55 million), marking its first acquisition in the Middle East. Optima’s founder Yusuf Saber will join DataCamp as Chief AI Officer, leading global AI operations from Dubai, as Optima’s adaptive-learning technology is rolled out across DataCamp over the next six months. Optima previously raised $1.1M from COTU Ventures and angels from Careem, Kitopi, Talabat, and Docebo. As part of the deal, DataCamp is launching DataCamp Classrooms in the UAE, offering educators, students, and government employees free access to 500+ data and AI courses, including six months of free access to its Intro to AI course.

🤑 Goldman Sachs is set to earn a record $110 million fee for advising on the $55 billion Saudi-backed acquisition of Electronic Arts, according to an EA filing. The bank was the sole adviser to EA in the deal led by PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, adding to the $24.3 million Goldman has earned from PIF over the past two years for advisory and underwriting. Banks including JPMorgan, which arranged $20 billion in debt, are expected to collect roughly $500 million in total fees from the transaction.

💾 Dubai-based CAMB.AI has partnered with Broadcom to run its voice-emulation AI directly on Broadcom’s NPU-powered chipsets, enabling on-device text-to-speech with no cloud dependency. The next phase will explore bringing CAMB.AI’s real-time translation model on-chip to support 150+ languages. The startup has raised $15.5 million to date, including an $11 million Pre-Series A round in March 2025.

📈 Saudi fintech Lean Technologies is exploring new investments as it expands beyond open banking, with CEO Hisham Al-Falih signaling that the company is laying early groundwork for a potential future IPO, according to reporting by Bloomberg. Backed by more than $100 million from investors including General Catalyst – and “well funded” following its nearly $70 million Series B last year – Lean is assessing opportunities in remittances, cross-border payments, alternative credit, insurance, pensions and investments. The company already provides open-finance capabilities to over 300 businesses across Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where regulatory frameworks for open banking continue to mature.

🟠 Talabat reported a strong Q3 2025, with GMV rising 27% year-on-year to $2.4 billion and revenue up 31% to $1.0 billion, while adjusted net income increased 15% to $112 million and adjusted EBITDA grew 21% to $154 million (6.4% of GMV). Growth was driven by higher order volumes across GCC and non-GCC markets, strong adoption of Talabat Pro, now representing nearly half of GMV, and adtech solutions that contributed over half of adjusted EBITDA. Food delivery grew nearly 20% YoY and grocery/retail expanded more than 40%, with the GCC accounting for 81% of GMV. Talabat reaffirmed its full-year guidance, expecting GMV growth of 27–29% and revenue growth of 29–32%.

🛒 Instashop continued to lag the wider group, showing mixed signs of recovery. GMV grew 9% year on year at constant currency to USD 157 million, helped by better order frequency. However profitability remains under pressure, with adjusted EBITDA down 65 percent to USD 0.8 million and margins compressing to 0.5 percent of GMV. Adjusted net income fell 38% to USD 1.3 million, as Instashop continues working through cost efficiencies and restructuring efforts.

🔴 Jahez reported SAR 121.5M in net profit for the first nine months of 2025, down 1.1% year-on-year, mainly due to a one-off Zakat provision reversal last year. Revenue was broadly flat at SAR 1.63B, supported by higher order volumes, improved average order value, and a commission rate increase to 15.5%. Advertising revenue rose 31.9%, while new subsidiaries and Blu direct sales boosted other revenue by 48.1%. In Q3, net income fell 21.9% YoY to SAR 62.6M amid stronger competition, though earnings nearly tripled QoQ. Unit economics improved to SAR 3.4 per order on an adjusted EBITDA basis. Total shareholders’ equity reached SAR 1.36B.