AI
Funding
+3
Aug 11, 2026
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1 min read
UAE customer intelligence startup Cobi raises $1M pre-seed led by Lunara Partners
The new capital will be used to expand enterprise deployments across the Middle East and internationally, and to further develop Cobi’s recommendation and decisioning capabilities.
Startups
+3
Aug 4, 2026
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1 min read
Saudi's Rime raises $2M+ seed to run AI agents on-site for retail chains
Seedra Ventures led again after backing the pre-Seed, in a round joined by Athlah Investment and Unity Invest Partners, behind a platform that runs decisions on-site through edge computing rather than sending footage to remote data centres.
News
+3
Jul 25, 2026
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1 min read
Notion acquires ZeroEntropy, the AI search startup co-founded by Moroccan CEO Ghita Houir Alami
The whole team joins Notion, with Houir Alami taking over its Model Research group, roughly a year after the YC-backed company raised a $4.2 million Seed.
News
+3
Jul 16, 2026
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1 min read
Vercel acquires Stakpak, the Egyptian-born DevOps agent startup, as it builds out agentic infrastructure
The deal takes a team that bootstrapped out of Cairo for two years, built one of the most popular open-source DevOps agents, and raised a $500K pre-seed just last year into the $9.3 billion company behind Next.js and v0.
AI
+1
Jul 13, 2026
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5 min read
Inside the AI services boom
After nearly a decade leading Deliveroo’s Middle East operation, Anis Harb left to help business make AI work at scale. We sit down with the Algebra AI founder, fresh from a $7M raise, to talk managed AI services, leaner teams and the gap between a promising demo and measurable results.
China
+4
Jul 10, 2026
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2 min read
Abu Dhabi's BlueFive co-leads $3B round for China's Kling AI, the largest raise ever for a video model company
The round values Kuaishou's spun-out video-generation unit at $18B ahead of a planned Hong Kong listing, and puts the Abu Dhabi asset manager alongside Tencent, CITIC Securities and CPE as the only Middle East-based name among the co-leads of a record Chinese AI financing.
Jordan
+4
Jul 10, 2026
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1 min read
Jordan's ISSF partners with STV to bring the Google-backed AI Fund to Jordanian founders
The tie-up marks ISSF's second fund partnership in a month after its $7 million commitment to Endeavor Catalyst V opened the Kingdom's second investment phase.
Analysis
+2
Jul 1, 2026
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14 min read
Tokenmaxxing and renting the frontier
How are founders and operators building across MENA thinking about token-spending caps, frontier versus open source model usage, and export controls?
Startups
+3
Jun 30, 2026
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3 min read
1001 raises $30M Series A led by Lux Capital to build sovereign AI for Gulf critical infrastructure
Eight months after its $9 million seed, 1001 has more than tripled its raise, backing its pitch to build AI that helps operators run critical infrastructure like airports, ports and energy grids.
Funding
+4
Jun 24, 2026
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2 min read
Abu Dhabi's MGX raises close to $50B in one of the largest AI funds ever
The firm has assembled a portfolio spanning frontier models, semiconductor infrastructure and data centres, with stakes including OpenAI and xAI.
Startups
+4
Jun 16, 2026
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1 min read
UAE's CNTXT AI closes $60M Series A co-led by AI71 and BlueFive Capital to scale sovereign AI infrastructure
The round is led in part by AI71, the Abu Dhabi applied-AI company that acquired founder Mohammad Abu Sheikh's previous venture and now returns as an investor, and lands weeks after CNTXT AI's acquisition of Gulf-dialect voice startup Actualize.
News
+2
Jun 9, 2026
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2 min read
Algebra AI emerges from stealth with $7M to bring managed AI operations to the GCC mid-market
Led by Anis Harb, former head of Deliveroo's Middle East business, the round was backed by Infinity Constellation, BECO Capital, Silicon Badia and Waseel Investments.
News
+4
Jun 5, 2026
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2 min read
Anthropic files for IPO after $65bn round at $965B valuation as QIA and MGX both deepen Gulf stakes
The filing makes Anthropic the third major AI company to move toward a public listing in 2026, following Cerebras, which listed on the Nasdaq in May at a $70B valuation, and ahead of rival OpenAI.
Startups
+4
Jun 5, 2026
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1 min read
CNTXT AI acquires Actualize to power Arabic voice agents across the GCC
Actualize develops Arabic voice models built natively for Gulf dialects with a research team drawn from Google, Nokia and Siemens.
Startups
+4
May 12, 2026
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2 min read
Exclusive: Egyptian grocery delivery startup Breadfast cuts 58 tech staff months after $50M raise
The cuts come 12 weeks after backing from Mubadala, the Olayan family, Y Combinator and the IFC.
Startups
+5
Apr 13, 2026
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4 min read
Golden Gate Ventures backs $2B AI infrastructure firm Invisible Technologies as it targets GCC enterprise deployments
Invisible, founded in 2015, claims to have trained data and models for more than 80% of the world's leading foundation model labs and counts Microsoft, AWS and Cohere among its enterprise clients.
Funding
+3
Apr 2, 2026
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5 min read
Abu Dhabi's MGX co-leads as OpenAI closes $122B round at $852B valuation
The co-lead position represents a deepening of a relationship that began in October 2024, when MGX participated in OpenAI's $6.6 billion Series E.
News
+3
Mar 12, 2026
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3 min read
Shorooq joins $1B seed round in Yann LeCun's AMI Labs, one of the largest AI seed financings ever, at a $3.5B pre-money valuation
The Abu Dhabi-based firm invested alongside Bezos Expeditions, Temasek, and NVIDIA, in the Paris-headquartered startup, which is building "world model" AI systems designed to reason about physical environments rather than just predict text.
Jordan
+4
Mar 12, 2026
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3 min read
Jordanian founder Amjad Masad's Replit triples valuation to $9B, as it targets $1B in ARR by year-end
The AI developer platform, founded in 2016 by Masad alongside Faris Masad and Haya Odeh, has raised a $400M Series D led by Georgian, with Qatar's QIA among the backers.
