AI

Interview

+4

The human face of the AI-native startup

Nov 4, 2026

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9 min read

The human face of the AI-native startup

Y Combinator-backed Veeza AI founder Aly Moursy is orchestrating dozens of AI agents, while using memes, personality and a conviction that "being nice is a moat" to earn trust, starting with a visa problem he knows firsthand from travelling on an Egyptian passport.

Saudi Arabia

+2

Aramco acquires 49% of HUMAIN in deal including $2.6B cash injection

Nov 1, 2026

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1 min read

Aramco acquires 49% of HUMAIN in deal including $2.6B cash injection

PIF retains majority ownership of the Saudi AI company as it targets three gigawatts of data-centre capacity by 2030.

News

+3

Dubai’s BY Venture Partners closes $60M third fund for global AI-native startups

Oct 29, 2026

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2 min read

Dubai’s BY Venture Partners closes $60M third fund for global AI-native startups

Dubai Future District Fund anchors the vehicle, following earlier funds that backed Huspy, NymCard, Toters and Onfido.

News

+3

Mubadala Capital’s venture chief Ibrahim Ajami to leave and launch $500M fund

Oct 28, 2026

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1 min read

Mubadala Capital’s venture chief Ibrahim Ajami to leave and launch $500M fund

The head of ventures is expected to leave next year to launch Noha, with backing from Mubadala Capital and a predominantly US investment mandate.

Startups

+3

UAE’s CNTXT AI expands into Silicon Valley with $300M in committed revenue

Oct 20, 2026

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2 min read

UAE’s CNTXT AI expands into Silicon Valley with $300M in committed revenue

The company, which raised $60 million from AI71 and BlueFive Capital in June, is building a US commercial team to sell Arabic voice technology and robotics training data.

Startups

+4

Saudi AI company Echelon targets enterprise deployments with backing from RAED Ventures, Avra and Ben Horowitz

Oct 6, 2026

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2 min read

Saudi AI company Echelon targets enterprise deployments with backing from RAED Ventures, Avra and Ben Horowitz

Founded by Prince Khalid Bin Bader Al Saud, the Riyadh business is pairing technology partnerships with engineers embedded in customer operations, with training and defence divisions also planned.

Startups

+6

Replit acquires AI analytics startup Atta

Oct 2, 2026

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1 min read

Replit acquires AI analytics startup Atta

Omar Shaik cold-emailed Amjad Masad two years ago asking him to invest. Masad and CTO Michele Catasta saw a demo and wrote a cheque the same day.

SaaS

+5

Keep Converting raises $2M pre-seed led by Nuwa Capital and COTU Ventures

Sep 10, 2026

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2 min read

Keep Converting raises $2M pre-seed led by Nuwa Capital and COTU Ventures

The UAE startup has emerged from stealth with an AI platform that generates and tests personalised product pages for individual ecommerce shoppers, claiming an average 64% conversion-rate lift across early deployments.

Saudi Arabia

+3

Gaia raises $1.5M led by SEEDRA to build sovereign AI layer for Saudi enterprises

Sep 8, 2026

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1 min read

Gaia raises $1.5M led by SEEDRA to build sovereign AI layer for Saudi enterprises

The Riyadh startup is building a permission-aware search, assistant and AI agent layer across companies’ internal systems, with data kept inside Saudi or deployed on-premise.

Public Markets

+3

HUMAIN starts IPO preparations 16 months after launch, with revenues still undisclosed

Sep 7, 2026

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3 min read

HUMAIN starts IPO preparations 16 months after launch, with revenues still undisclosed

The Saudi AI company says its compute is selling before it is built, but an eventual public-market pitch will need to show who is paying for it and how much demand comes from outside the Kingdom’s state-backed ecosystem.

Saudi Arabia

+2

The AI announcements from LEAP 2026 worth knowing

Sep 4, 2026

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2 min read

The AI announcements from LEAP 2026 worth knowing

LEAP closed in Riyadh yesterday after four days dominated by Saudi Arabia’s AI buildout, with HUMAIN responsible for a fairly extraordinary share of the announcements.

Saudi Arabia

+3

HUMAIN says planned $10B global VC fund could be larger, unveils separate Saudi-focused vehicle

Sep 4, 2026

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2 min read

HUMAIN says planned $10B global VC fund could be larger, unveils separate Saudi-focused vehicle

The Saudi AI company will create HUMAIN Limitless, a separate initiative specifically focused on investing in and supporting AI companies within Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia

+4

HUMAIN invests in Arabic.AI and Tarjama to expand Saudi enterprise AI offering

Sep 1, 2026

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1 min read

HUMAIN invests in Arabic.AI and Tarjama to expand Saudi enterprise AI offering

Undisclosed investment brings Nour Al Hassan’s Arabic language technology business into the PIF-backed AI group’s growing application stack.

Startups

+4

Builder.ai founder Sachin Dev Duggal launches Dubai-based SeKondBrain after unicorn collapse

Aug 28, 2026

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4 min read

Builder.ai founder Sachin Dev Duggal launches Dubai-based SeKondBrain after unicorn collapse

New venture marks the return of the Builder.ai founder 15 months after the QIA-backed startup entered insolvency, with an initial product designed to carry memory between competing AI models

Jordan

+3

HeyBreez raises $2.5M seed led by Lunara Partners as call volumes pass one million a month

Aug 19, 2026

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2 min read

HeyBreez raises $2.5M seed led by Lunara Partners as call volumes pass one million a month

The oversubscribed round brings in Jabbar Group alongside returning backer DASH Ventures, seven months after the company's $1.3 million pre-seed.

Funding

+3

UAE customer intelligence startup Cobi raises $1M pre-seed led by Lunara Partners

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

Saudi's Rime raises $2M+ seed to run AI agents on-site for retail chains

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

Notion acquires ZeroEntropy, the AI search startup co-founded by Moroccan CEO Ghita Houir Alami

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

Vercel acquires Stakpak, the Egyptian-born DevOps agent startup, as it builds out agentic infrastructure

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

Inside the AI services boom

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

Abu Dhabi's BlueFive co-leads $3B round for China's Kling AI, the largest raise ever for a video model company

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

Jordan's ISSF partners with STV to bring the Google-backed AI Fund to Jordanian founders

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

Tokenmaxxing and renting the frontier

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

1001 raises $30M Series A led by Lux Capital to build sovereign AI for Gulf critical infrastructure

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.

E-Commerce

+7

Revora and raises $2M seed to build an AI sales layer for ecommerce merchants

Jun 24, 2026

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1 min read

Revora and raises $2M seed to build an AI sales layer for ecommerce merchants

The round, co-led by Pakistan's i2i Ventures and Dubai's Oraseya Capital, backs a pivot from conversational-commerce tool to a broader AI platform, as the company leans into a Saudi market where it says revenue has grown tenfold since late 2024.