Author: Mohamed Fathy

Munify (YC S25) has raised $3M in seed funding to build a cross-border neobank for Egyptians abroad. The startup, founded by former Microsoft and Uber engineer Khalid Ashmawy, gives migrants a faster, cheaper way to send money home while also offering residents access to U.S. banking. Khalid, who previously co-founded proptech unicorn Huspy, started Munify after years of frustration with slow, expensive wire transfers. Egypt is one of the world’s largest remittance markets, with nearly $30B annually. Munify serves Egyptians in the U.S., U.K., Europe, and the Gulf, letting them send money instantly at better rates. It also helps freelancers…

Egypt’s first incentivized goal-based investment platform, has officially launched after closing the pre-seed funding round led by 4DX Ventures, with participation from Plus VC and a group of global angel investors. The company announces obtaining its Portfolio Management License from the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA), enabling it to directly manage investments for retail users. PALM’s Strategy  This milestone marks a significant step towards PALM’s strategy to provide a new, smart solution that enables individuals to save, grow, and access their money with unprecedented ease and a high degree `of personalization and flexibility, all through the PALM application now available across…

Maalexi, a UAE-based B2B food and agriculture platform, has secured an Islamic credit facility of up to $20 million from Amwal Capital Partners, an independent alternative investments firm. The agreement begins with an initial $5 million tranche, which will support Maalexi in scaling its operations and strengthening food security across the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The facility, collateralized against the company’s inventory and receivables in UAE warehouses, will also allow Maalexi to channel more of its equity capital toward developing its advanced technology stack, including embedded technologies, proprietary datasets, and an upcoming tokenization layer that will enable real-time transactions and…

Holo, a fintech platform reinventing how people buy homes in the UAE, has announced that it has raised $22 million in one of the largest Series A rounds in the GCC in 2025. The investment round was led by Saudi Arabia’s Impact46, with support from Mubadala Investment Company “Mubadala”, an Abu Dhabi sovereign investor, as well as participation from Saudi institutional investors, Rua Growth Fund, anb seed, and MoreThan Capital, with the participation of returning investors Salica Oryx Fund and Dubai Future District Fund. Buying a Home Michael Hunter & Arran Summerhill, Co-Founders of Holo, stated, “At Holo, we’ve always…

Entlaq, in partnership with El Gouna, is proud to announce the launch of the third edition of the Egyptian Entrepreneurship Sector Diagnostics Report (SDR 2025), taking place in El Gouna from September 24 to 26, 2025. Now recognized as an annual flagship publication, the report offers the most comprehensive analysis of Egypt’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, covering investment flows, sector performance, gender gaps, legal frameworks, and policy trends. The El Gouna Launch Summit will convene government leaders, investors, development partners, startup founders, and international speakers to discuss the report’s findings and align on strategies for the future of entrepreneurship in Egypt. With deep sectoral…

The New York-based startup, Eight Sleep, announced Tuesday that it raised a fresh $100 million round from investors such as HSG, Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, Y Combinator and athletes including Ferrari F1 driver Charles Leclerc, and Zak Brown, who is the CEO of McLaren F1. With this round, Eight Sleep has raised roughly $260 million total, Pitchbook estimates. It previously raised an $86 million Series C in 2021 by investors who assigned it a $500 million post-money valuation. Eight offers smart mattresses that integrate software and AI to track and enhance sleep quality. Its flagship product, Pod, offers features…

Al Ahly Momkn, one of Egypt’s leading fintech and digital payments companies and a subsidiary of the National Bank of Egypt, has announced the launch of its new corporate identity — a strategic transformation that reflects its future vision and expansion into providing innovative, comprehensive digital payment solutions. Digital Payment Solutions  The new identity embodies the company’s transition from focusing solely on in-store point-of-sale (POS) services to cementing its position as a comprehensive provider of digital payment solutions, enabling individuals and businesses to conduct their financial transactions faster, more securely and more efficiently, in line with Egypt’s rapidly evolving market…

In a significant step towards strengthening Oman’s image as a hub of innovation and digital transformation, the Arabian Research Bureau (ARB)—organizer of the prestigious COMEX (Oman’s global technology and innovation expo)—has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Unified Promotional Identity Office of the Sultanate of Oman, located within the “Nazdhar” (National Programme for Private Sector Development & Foreign Trade). The MoU was signed today by Mr. Amr Abdullah Baabood, CEO of ARB, and His Excellency Dr. Fares bin Turki Al Said, Acting Director of the Unified Promotional Identity Office. This partnership aims to seamlessly integrate Oman’s national promotional…

Shahbandr, a leading enabler of e-commerce and digital transformation in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East and North Africa, and Tamara, the region’s leading provider of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) solutions, partnered to empower online stores with flexible payment options that help them boost sales and accelerate growth. BNPL Solution  Through this partnership, Tamara will provide its BNPL solution to all online stores on the Shahbandr platform, enhancing the shopping experience and increasing conversion rates by offering diverse payment methods and instalment options. At the same time, Shahbandr will be able to collect its service fees directly from Tamara,…

In recent years, companies have started to focus on understanding brand perception and customer sentiment toward their products, creating a market for monitoring and analytics. The global social media analytics market was valued at $13.47 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow from $16.53 billion in 2025 to $61.95 billion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights. As AI tools have evolved, so have monitoring and analytics solutions. Before the AI boom, Egyptian entrepreneur Mohy Abou Alam explored this market and co-founded Darwinz in 2021, which later rebranded as TheDar.AI — a Saudi-Egyptian startup offering an AI Copilot platform…

Perle, an AI training data platform powered by Web3 that brings human wisdom to AI models, today announced it has closed a $9 million seed round led by Framework Ventures. The round brings Perle’s total funding to $17.5 million across its seed and pre-seed rounds, marking a major milestone in the company’s growth and mission to improve how AI systems are trained and evaluated. Perle Labs With this new capital, Perle will launch Perle Labs, a crypto-native ecosystem designed to transform how human input powers AI. By integrating blockchain infrastructure and incentive design, Perle Labs will provide transparent payments, on-chain…

The Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC), of the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), has welcomed a new cohort of tech startups under the 47th round of its flagship incubation program, Start IT. The program is part of ITIDA’s broader mission to empower youth, promote innovation, and accelerate the growth of early-stage technology ventures across Egypt. Aspiring Entrepreneurs Start IT targets aspiring entrepreneurs with ICT-driven ideas, solutions, or prototypes and helps them build scalable, investment-ready startups. The latest cohort intake reflects ITIDA’s continued commitment to nurturing a vibrant and sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem. Alumni Networking and Community Building The kickoff…

F6 Group, a newly formed entity integrating venture capital and entrepreneurial support, announces its official launch, anchored by two powerful arms: F6 Ventures, a newly launched seed-stage investment firm, and Flat6Labs, the region’s most recognized startup accelerator platform. Together, they represent a bold evolution of the company’s 14-year journey, bringing sharper focus, expanded reach, and deeper capabilities to support founders and ecosystems across the Middle East and Africa. F6 Ventures At the core of this transformation is F6 Ventures, the Group’s dedicated venture capital arm to be managing six funds with over $90 million in assets under management (AUM) and…

Alaan, a UAE-based spend management platform, announced Tuesday that it has raised $48 million in an oversubscribed Series A funding round to accelerate its expansion in Saudi Arabia and enhance its suite of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered finance automation tools. The company had previously raised $7.5 million across its Seed and Pre-Series A rounds. Investors The round was led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) with participation from the founders of 885 Capital, Sudeep Ramnani & Jai Mahtani, Y Combinator, 468 Capital, and Pioneer Fund. Regional operators also participated in the round, including Hosam Arab (Founder of…

Suplyd, the Cairo-based digital procurement platform for restaurants, announced the successful raise of $2 million in a pre-Series A funding round. The investment was led by 4DX Ventures, Camel Ventures, and Plus VC, with participation from Seedstars and existing investors. This round will support the company’s mission to build a comprehensive infrastructure for restaurant operations and expand into untapped areas across Egypt. Procurement Solutions Founded in 2022, Suplyd provides procurement solutions for small and medium-sized restaurants, addressing long-standing inefficiencies in Egypt’s $10 billion HORECA supply chain. By directly connecting restaurants with suppliers and streamlining procurement workflows, Suplyd is tackling the…

EdfaPay, a pioneering digital payment solutions provider, today proudly announced a landmark achievement: securing the coveted “PCI Mobile Payments on COTS (MPoC) Solutions,” “PCI MPoC Software,” and “PCI MPoC Services” certifications from the esteemed PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC). First Company This monumental accomplishment positions EdfaPay as the first company in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to earn this prestigious triple recognition, firmly cementing its leadership and unwavering commitment to the highest standards of security and innovation in the rapidly evolving payments landscape. The PCI MPoC Solutions certification establishes a global benchmark for…

Data Guardians Network (D-GN), a decentralized platform transforming global human input into highly accurate, ethically sourced frontier training data for AI, has closed a US$5 million pre-seed round led by Saudi businessman Hamoud Al-Rumayyan, Web3 infrastructure leader droppGroup and veteran crypto firm Hub Culture. D-GN’s Emergence The investment fuels D-GN’s emergence from stealth and accelerates its global rollout, scaling contributor operations, multimodal data pipelines and enterprise integrations worldwide. Trustworthy AI D-GN enables enterprises to build trustworthy AI by sourcing diverse, human-created and -labelled frontier datasets through a decentralized contributor model. Users around the world complete data annotation tasks – such…

At Huawei Cloud Summit Northern Africa 2025, Hu Hang, General Manager of International Business of Huawei Hybrid Cloud, announced the launch of Huawei Cloud Stack 8.5 for Northern Africa. He highlighted Huawei Cloud Stack’s strengths in hybrid cloud capabilities and cutting-edge innovation, while reaffirming its “One Customer, One Cloud” development path. The release aims to help North African government and enterprise customers unlock more value from the cloud and accelerate digital and intelligent innovation. Huawei Cloud Stack 8.5 for Northern Africa: A leap to new heights As digital and AI transformation accelerates globally, cloud adoption continues to increase. In Northern…

Saudi-based personalized meal subscription platform Calo has secured $39 million in a Series B funding extension round, bringing its total Series B funding to $64 million. Latest funding round The latest funding round brings Calo’s total funding to around $90 million, following a $13.5 million seed round in 2021, a $13 million Series A in 2022, and an initial $25 million Series B tranche closed in December 2024. The extension round was led by AlJazira Capital, with follow-on participation from existing investors Nuwa Capital, STV, Khwarizmi Ventures, and Al Faisaliah Group, and new investor Oraseya Capital joining the round. The…

Visa (NYSE: V), a global leader in payments, today announced the launch of a new report, ‘Value of Acceptance: Understanding the Digital Payment Landscape in Egypt,’ which reveals significant growth potential for digital payments, especially among small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). Digital Payments Ecosystem The report highlights substantial progress in Egypt’s digital payments ecosystem. Over half (53%) of merchants surveyed have implemented digital payments in the last two years, showing accelerated adoption trends. Additionally, 55% of cash-only merchants are interested in adopting the technology. This growing popularity is reinforced by positive experiences among businesses already accepting digital payments, over 80%…