Founding MENA #22
Welcome to the Founding MENA newsletter, bringing you the top stories from across the region every week.
I hope you find the newsletter insightful, but I’m always open to feedback and suggestions. Let’s get into it!
💰 Investment Rounds
- 🇪🇬 Blnk raised $37.1M in Series A and debt facilities led by Algebra Ventures. See more here.
- 🇦🇪 Algebra AI raised $7M from Infinity Constellation, BECO Capital, Silicon Badia, and Waseel Investments. See more here.
- 🇲🇦 Agenz raised $5M from Breega, Attijariwafa Ventures, and Saviu Ventures. See more here.
- 🇦🇪 Zuvees raised $1.6M in Series A from IvyCap Ventures. See more here.
📰 Startup News
A Saudi startup just became the first Arab company to join Anthropic's global Claude Partner Network.
Velents.ai (an enterprise AI company focused on recruitment and HR) earned this distinction by doing something hard: getting sovereign governments and tier-one banks to actually trust and run their AI operations on locally built infrastructure.
Plenty of startups in the region talk about enterprise AI. Very few have documented 88% reductions in operational costs and processed 6 million government documents inside genuinely sensitive national institutions.
The Claude Partner Network launched in March 2026 with a $100M strategic investment fund and officially debuted on 3 June with 100 members worldwide. Velents is the only Arab company in that inaugural cohort.
For founders building in AI across MENA, this is the template.
Don't just use the global tools. Localise them, own the compliance layer, and earn trust with the institutions that matter.
Read more here.
Egypt's first fintech unicorn, MNT-Halan, just raised again at a $1.4bn valuation.
Most unicorn stories in MENA are about Western or Gulf institutional money flowing in from outside. This is different.
Egypt's largest bank backing Egypt's largest fintech is a signal that domestic capital is starting to show up for domestic builders.
Mounir Nakhla built MNT-Halan into something rare: a genuinely full-stack financial services platform covering lending, payments, e-wallets, savings, investments, and e-commerce.
A proper ecosystem spanning Egypt, Türkiye, UAE, and a specialised bank serving micro businesses in Pakistan.
The Al Ahly Capital investment also signals something bigger than one deal. Traditional financial institutions in MENA are no longer watching fintech from the sidelines.
A second closing is expected as part of the ongoing round. Proceeds are heading primarily back into deepening Egypt operations, with regional growth continuing in parallel.
Read more here.
📰 Other News
Hub71 startups have now raised more than $2.7 billion in total funding, and the momentum isn't slowing down.
In 2025 alone, Hub71 startups raised $599M and generated $175M in revenue. The community now spans 390 startups across 295 supported programmes.
What stands out to me from the numbers:
- 5,000+ startup applications received in 2025, a 62% YoY increase
- $244M in corporate deals signed between startups and major organisations since 2022
- New verticals launched: Hub71+ Life Sciences joins AI, ClimateTech, and Digital Assets
- International cohorts from Hong Kong and Japan now flowing through Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi isn't trying to be the next Silicon Valley. It's building something different, a launchpad into MENA, Asia and Africa simultaneously.
That's the long game.
Read more here.
A 19-year-old Jordanian founder just sold his AI edtech startup ... and if you don't know him, you should!
Mohammad Alsufi built NoNerds from scratch: an AI-native education marketplace that doesn't just host courses, but actually learns from them.
Upload a video lecture and the platform generates flashcards, exam questions, study notes, and a personalised learning journey grounded in what the instructor actually said.
Students can ask questions about specific lessons through text or voice and get answers pulled directly from the course material.
12,000 students. 6,000 lectures. 128,000 watch hours. All built by someone who started his first online business at 14, incorporated a Dubai company at 16 while still in school, and has been running production-scale AI systems ever since.
Jo Academy, the Arab world's leading edtech platform with 2.1 million students across Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia, acquired NoNerds yesterday.
Mohammad is now leading AI initiatives across Jo Academy's regional infrastructure.
Mohammad is an incredible guy. He's not just an edtech founder; he runs Brainsless, an AI research lab developing its own models, and co-founded Planless, a platform where founders build their company alongside an AI co-founder.
The next generation of MENA founders isn't waiting for permission.
Read more here.
🤝🏼 Tools for Founders
Founding MENA has partnered with CapQuest, MENA’s leading equity management platform.
CapQuest’s automatic SAFE tracker is a game-changer. Upload all your SAFEs at once and it instantly models dilution, tracks valuations, and turns fundraising scenarios from a spreadsheet nightmare into something you can run in minutes.
All of our readers can get 20% off their first year with CapQuest using the code: scalingmena20.
That’s all for this week, thanks! All of our MENA based readers: please stay safe. Sam
First published 15 Jun 2026 on Substack
The week in MENA tech, every Monday. Free.
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