In 2019, five employees left Peak Games to build another mobile gaming company in Istanbul.

At Harrods in London, Somewhere serves guacamole hummus, kunafa-wrapped shrimp and beef shawarma with beetroot rice.

Tabby and Tamara became familiar to Gulf shoppers through a simple offer: buy something now and spread the payment across instalments.

A neighbourhood shop can look like a small customer for a technology company.

Huda Beauty began selling false lashes after Huda Kattan had spent years publishing beauty advice.

For years, multinational companies serving the Middle East typically ran their regional operations from Dubai. Saudi Arabia wanted to change that.

1 billion. 3 billion. Souq sold to Amazon for $580 million. Inside Iran, companies offering many of the same services have grown to comparable, and in some cases larger, operating scale.

Some of the UAE’s biggest business empires were built by Indian entrepreneurs. LuLu, Aster, major jewellery chains, education groups and construction businesses all grew out of the same broader pattern.

Egypt has produced an outsized share of the Middle East’s biggest fintech companies.

Islamic fintech is growing quickly, and the Gulf is becoming one of the most important places where that growth is being tested in the real world.

The Middle East has become unusually fertile ground for super apps. The reason is fairly simple: millions of consumers already live through their phones, but many of the services they use every day are still fragmented across different apps.

Trendyol is one of Turkey’s biggest technology companies. Insider sells its software to more than 1,500 brands across 28 countries. Huda Beauty became a global cosmetics business, while Hepsiburada became the first Turkish company to list on Nasdaq.

A few years ago, founders moving to Dubai were often treated as exceptions. Today, the pattern is much harder to miss.

For many Saudis, ALBAIK is more than somewhere to grab fried chicken. The chain has been around since 1974, survived wave after wave of global fast-food competition, and somehow remained one of the most talked-about food brands in the country.