Happy Friday friends 👋

Hot on the heels of Tabby's publication of its first annual financial statement for its Saudi subsidiary, Tamara has gone ahead and joined the club. The numbers are, similarly, extremely impressive, and a deep dive where we crunch through what they reveal (and what they don't) will follow in due course, but the top-line takeaways can be read below.

Not to be outdone on the news cycle either, Tabby quickly lurched back into life with the well-timed announcement that they've received a UAE wallet licence from the Central Bank, clearing the way for spending accounts, cash management tools, and a broader financial services play in their second core market. If you're a premium subscriber who read last week's deep dive, the strategic logic here wouldn't come as a surprise to you (and if you're not, there's still time to fix that).

Elsewhere, Saudi fashion startup Aya, which has been on our radar since its seed round around this time last year, has secured a $7 million Series A led by RAED Ventures with backing from Nuwa Capital and PIF's Sanabil. The demand-driven model (test designs, only produce what sells) is reminiscent of Shein's playbook applied to the abaya market, and it's one we'll likely return to in the not-too-distant future.

We've also got Homegrown Ventures closing a $22.8 million debut fund as MENA's first VC firm dedicated to consumer brands, Golden Gate Ventures backing $2 billion AI infrastructure firm Invisible Technologies as it targets GCC enterprise deployments, and Egyptian cybersecurity startup Raspire joining Y Combinator with a no-code runtime protection platform.

This and much more below 👇

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Aya (🇸🇦 KSA), a demand-driven fashion platform that tests designs and only produces what sells, has raised $7M in a Series A round, led by RAED Ventures, with participation from Nuwa Capital, Sanabil Investments, Joa Capital, and Khwarizmi Ventures.

Reme-D (🇪🇬 Egypt), a biotech startup producing room-temperature PCR testing kits that remove cold-chain requirements, currently operating across Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, and Kenya, has raised $500K, backed by the Global Innovation Fund (GIF).

INVIA (🇪🇬 Egypt), an AI financial management platform for SMEs covering bookkeeping, cash flow, and inventory, has raised $1.2M from angel investors and strategic backers.

AVA (🇸🇦 KSA), a fintech building IoT-enabled payment infrastructure for unattended retail and mobility, has raised an undisclosed strategic investment, backed by Plug and Play Middle East.

Sufra AI (🇶🇦 Qatar), an AI-powered smart menu and ordering platform for restaurants, has raised $100K in a pre-Seed round, backed by Snoonu as the first deal from its new Startup Factory programme.

🛒 UAE-based Homegrown Ventures has closed its debut Fund I at $22.8M, exceeding its $20M target and positioning itself as the region's first VC firm focused on CPG and FMCG brands. Founded by Nader Amiri and Ahmad Shamieh, both with backgrounds at Unilever, Coca-Cola, Kraft/Mondelez, and Danone, the fund targets early-stage "better-for-you" companies across food, wellness, and lifestyle. Homegrown has already deployed into five portfolio companies including PawPots (fresh pet food) and Plaay (zero processed sugar chocolate). Fund I will deploy across MENA, South Asia, and select global markets.

🛡️ BlueFive Capital is seeking to raise up to $3B for aerospace and defence investments, with an initial $1B expected by Q3 2026, per Bloomberg. The Abu Dhabi-based firm, founded in 2023 by former Investcorp executive Hazem Ben-Gacem, is looking to capitalize on rising Gulf defence spending driven by the Iran conflict, with a focus on NATO-standard technologies. Former UK defence secretary Michael Fallon, a senior adviser, has been meeting potential investors. BlueFive manages $4.4B in AUM and has been active in AI, leading Mal's record $230M MENA seed round in January and Origen's $50M round in February.

🇲🇦 Moroccan public financing institution Tamwilcom has launched a $69M venture-building programme to support 800 startups over three years. The initiative combines capital, mentorship, and operational support, with founders receiving monthly stipends, prototype funding, and loans of up to MAD 2M. Partners include Technopark, CEED Maroc, Flat6Labs, and 500 Global.

📈 Tamara's Saudi arm has reported its first full year of profitability, with audited accounts showing net income of $51.5M for 2025, reversing a $34.7M loss the year before. Revenue reached $360M, up 90% YoY, with total assets nearly doubling to $1.33B. The turning point was a new long-term consumer financing product launched after SAMA granted a consumer finance licence in February 2025, which reached $381M in gross receivables (34% of the loan book) in its first year. Customer processing fees jumped thirty-fold to $42.4M as Tamara increasingly charges shoppers directly.

💳 Tabby has been granted a Stored Value Facilities licence by the Central Bank of the UAE, clearing the regulatory hurdle to hold customer funds and roll out spending accounts, cards, and money management tools in the Emirates. The SVF licence marks the first time Tabby has held direct regulatory authorisation in the UAE rather than operating under the lighter framework governing merchant-funded BNPL. The move mirrors the licence stack assembled in Saudi Arabia, where Tabby received its BNPL permit in July 2023, a formal financing licence in October 2025, and acquired digital wallet Tweeq in September 2024.

🔐 Cairo-founded cybersecurity startup Raspire has joined YC's Spring 2026 batch, bringing a no-code runtime application protection platform already securing apps used by 20M+ end users globally. Co-founded by Hassan Mostafa and Kareem Selim, both with backgrounds securing applications for banks and fintechs, Raspire targets the gap in post-deployment application security that traditional tooling largely ignores. Raspire joins a small but growing cluster of Egyptian-founded cybersecurity startups in San Francisco, alongside Strix and NexGuards.

🤖 Golden Gate Ventures' MENA fund has invested in Invisible Technologies, the San Francisco-based AI company helping enterprises get models into production. Invisible claims to have trained data and models for 80%+ of leading foundation model labs, with clients including Microsoft, AWS, and Cohere. Revenue hit $134M in 2024 (more than double YoY) following a $100M raise at a $2B+ valuation in September 2025. The GCC has been identified as a core target market, with Golden Gate's MENA team positioning Invisible across Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain.

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