Founding MENA #4
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
- 🇦🇪 Property Finder raised $170M led by Mubadala Investment Company. See more here.
- 🇲🇦 Yakeey raised $15M in Series A with Beltone Venture Capital joining IFC, Enza Capital, and 212 Founders. See more here.
- 🇸🇦 Vennre raised $9.6M in pre-Series A co-led by Vision Ventures and anb seed Fund. See more here.
- 🇲🇦 Enakl raised $2.3M in seed funding led by Azur Innovation Fund, Witamax, and MFounders. See more here.
- 🇦🇪 Receiptable raised a strategic growth round (undisclosed amount) led by 21 Ventures. See more here.
- 🇦🇪 Yozo.ai raised $1.7M in pre-seed funding co-led by Access Bridge Ventures and Disruptech Ventures. See more here.
- 🇦🇪 Mantas raised $1.77M in pre-seed funding from Nuwa Capital, Suhail Ventures, and Plus VC. See more here.
📰 Startup News
Glamera acquires Bookr.co
Glamera acquired Bookr.co to accelerate its GCC expansion in beauty and wellness tech this week.
Founded in 2022, Glamera has already processed over SAR 4bn in transactions while serving more than 4,500 service providers across the region. Now they're adding Bookr's 300,000+ users across Kuwait, Bahrain, and KSA.
Glamera are building a unified, AI-powered ecosystem for the beauty and wellness sector. The acquisition immediately expands regional reach and market share while enabling the rollout of advanced AI capabilities.
Post-acquisition, the combined platform will serve millions of users through an integrated ecosystem covering booking, digital payments, with POS, salon/clinic management, AI-driven analytics, supply-chain integrations, and sector partnerships.
Co-founder Mohamed Hijazi said the acquisition marks Glamera's transition from high-growth startup to mature regional platform and lays the groundwork for a future stock market listing.
Read more here.
Abwaab aquires Apex Education
Abwaab acquired Apex Education to complete the student journey from tutoring to elite global university admissions.
Founded in 2019 by three founders who got into Harvard, Oxford, and UChicago themselves - Leila Hassan (Oxford), Hussein El Kheshen (UChicago), and Mohamed Ebied (Harvard) - Apex has helped students secure admissions to the world's most competitive universities.
Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, Columbia, UChicago, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Imperial College London, UCL, and EPFL are among the many universities using the Apex platform.
Abwaab, co-founded in 2019 by Hamdi Tabbaa and Sabri Hakim, operates across Jordan, Egypt, and Pakistan with tutoring and test prep. Now they're adding high-end admissions guidance to create an end-to-end platform for students' full education journey.
Most edtech platforms stop at tutoring or test prep. Abwaab is building the complete stack. Early learning, tutoring, test prep, and now global university placement are all part of the product stack.
Post-acquisition, Leila will continue leading Apex's admissions services within Abwaab, combining Apex's deep trust with families with Abwaab's scale and infrastructure.
Read more here.
🔦 Spotlight
Beco Capital
Before Beco Capital became the GCC's largest early-stage VC, founder Dany Farha had already built and exited three companies.
For an ecosystem so heavily dominated by ‘capital allocators’ vs exited founders/operators, Beco’s investment approach set a new bar for early-stage investors in the region.
Dany's Track Record:
👉🏼 Co-founded and exited Bayt.com (MENA's largest job site)
👉🏼 Built and exited Butlers (UAE's largest commercial laundry)
👉🏼 Built and exited Intercat (one of the UAE's largest caterers)
👉🏼 Seed investor in Gonabit (acquired by Living Social in 2011)
In 2012, Dany co-founded Beco Capital with his cousin Amir Farha. The name "Beco" = "Booster Engine Cut Off": the moment a rocket achieves sufficient altitude to exit Earth's atmosphere. The Beco track record to date speaks for itself:
Fund I (2015): $50M
👉🏼 Backed Careem early → $3.1B exit to Uber
👉🏼 Backed Property Finder → $1B+ exit in 2024
👉🏼 Four total exits, including Cisco's acquisition of Voicea
Fund II (2019): $100M
👉🏼 Backed Swvl → went public via $1.5B SPAC merger
👉🏼 Backed Kitopi → became a unicorn in 2021
👉🏼 Backed MaxAB → MENA's largest seed round at the time
Latest (2025): $370M Dual-Fund Raise
👉🏼 $820M+ total AUM (largest non-government early-stage VC in the Gulf)
👉🏼 65+ portfolio companies
👉🏼Two $1B+ exits
👉🏼 One unicorn
👉🏼 9,000+ jobs created across the portfolio
Beco identified a funding gap: tons of capital at $50K-$200K (angels, accelerators), nothing at the $1M-$3M Seed to Series A stage. They filled it.
They're founder-obsessed. They back the strongest teams building scalable, defensible businesses, even in sectors they aren't initially bullish on, until they meet the right founder.
Beco's portfolio companies have raised $1B+ in follow-on capital and shaped entire industries.
If you’d like to connect with Beco, reach out to the team here.
📰 Other News
L’IMAD Holding merges with ADQ
Abu Dhabi just consolidated L’IMAD Holding and ADQ to create a sovereign investment powerhouse.
The Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs (SCFEA) issued a resolution merging ADQ’s assets and investments into L’IMAD Holding, creating one of the region’s largest and most diversified sovereign investment platforms.
The scale of this new sovereign investment firm is incredible:
- 25+ investment companies and platforms
- 250+ group subsidiaries
- Portfolio includes TAQA, Modon Properties, Etihad Airways, PureHealth, Etihad Rail, Wio Bank, Abu Dhabi Ports, McLaren, and Louis Dreyfus
Chaired by Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi), L’IMAD will build globally competitive investment platforms focused on national champions in strategic sectors: Energy, real estate, healthcare (including pharma), food, aviation, ports, financial services, and industrial/tech sectors.
The company will pursue direct and indirect investments through both private and public markets, including private investment funds in partnership with strategic global players.
Why this matters for founders: ADQ has been one of MENA’s most active investors in startups backing companies like AppliedAI (pre-Series B last week), Wio Bank, and dozens of emerging tech platforms across fintech, healthtech, and AI.
This consolidation creates a unified sovereign investment vehicle with enhanced flexibility, diversification, and firepower. L’IMAD will expand its global footprint through private funds, operational capabilities, and strategic partnerships.
The SCFEA oversees three principal sovereign funds: ADIA, Mubadala, and now the consolidated L’IMAD, plus ADNOC. This is nation-building at scale.
Read more here.
That’s all for this week, thanks! Sam
First published 2 Feb 2026 on Substack
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