MENA, Pakistan & GCC Tech Roundup | Week of July 14-22, 2026

THE BIG PICTURE: H1 2026 REPORT JUST DROPPED

The headline number everyone is talking about: MENA startups raised $1.7 billion across 242 funding rounds in the first half of 2026, as investors continued to deploy capital despite heightened geopolitical uncertainty, according to Wamda’s H1 2026 report. The figure represents an 18 percent decline from the $2.1 billion raised in the same period of 2025, while deal volume fell 28 percent year on year.

The decline is real, but context matters. Debt accounted for 29% of total capital raised during H1 2026, compared with 44% a year earlier, indicating that equity investment represented a larger share of overall funding. Rather than signalling a broad contraction, the first half of the year reflected a market recalibrating amid heightened regional uncertainty, with capital increasingly concentrated around larger ecosystems, established sectors and companies with clearer paths to scale.

MAGNiTT’s read is even sharper. MENA venture funding showed signs of deeper stress in the first half of 2026, with startup investment falling 22 percent year on year to $1.35 billion while deal count dropped 41 percent to 214 transactions, the lowest half-year total since at least 2022. The sharper warning signal was not the decline in capital, but its increasing concentration among fewer startups.

Who’s holding it together: The UAE further consolidated its position as MENA’s dominant startup market during the first half of 2026. Startups based in the country raised $1.2 billion across 83 deals, accounting for roughly 70% of all capital invested across the region. Saudi Arabia followed with $259 million across 80 deals, an 81% decline in capital compared with the same period last year, with fintech dominating the Kingdom’s funding landscape, accounting for $176 million, or 68% of total investment, across 13 startups.

One troubling stat that deserves its own article: Male-founded startups captured approximately 95% of all capital deployed during H1, raising $1.6 billion across 213 deals. Female-founded companies secured just $2.5 million through 14 transactions, representing only 0.14% of total funding.

DEALS THIS WEEK

🇸🇦 Think | $8M Pre-Seed | AI Infrastructure

The standout deal of the week. Saudi-based Think announced it has raised over $8 million in pre-seed funding, marking the largest AI infrastructure and deeptech pre-seed round in MENA to date. The round is being co-led by RAED Ventures and Wa’ed Ventures, with participation from Dhahran Techno Valley’s Venture Capital arm and strategic angel investors.

What Think actually does sets it apart from most AI plays in the region. Think combines liquid-cooled GPU hardware with proprietary orchestration software that reportedly achieves over 90% GPU utilization, compared with industry averages of 30-50%. The company will use the funding to expand its team, scale manufacturing, accelerate product development, and support deployments across Saudi Arabia, the GCC and selected international markets over the next 18 months.

Founded in 2025, Think is going after the infrastructure layer, not the application layer. Given how expensive and scarce compute is across the region, this is a bet that could pay off significantly as demand for AI deployment grows.

🇦🇪 Keyper | $11M Series A | Proptech / Rent Finance

Keyper, a UAE startup that lets tenants pay rent monthly while landlords receive annual payments upfront, has raised $11 million in Series A funding as it scales a platform targeting one of the Gulf’s largest yet least-digitized financial markets. The round was led by Speedinvest and included NeoVentures, the corporate venture capital arm of Mashreq Bank, alongside MEVP, Dubai Future District Fund, Property Finder, Arab National Bank, Ellington Properties, Dar Ventures and Abbey Road Investment Group.

The traction numbers back the raise. The company says it has financed more than $44 million in rent since launch, including $19 million in 2026 year-to-date, and supports over 10,500 properties valued above $6 billion, serving 4,000 landlords with more than 100,000 app downloads. The company also closed a $30M sukuk financing facility from Franklin Templeton alongside this equity round, giving it a substantial capital stack to fund rent advances at scale.

🇲🇦 ORA Technologies | $10M Series A | Super App / Morocco

Morocco-based super app ORA Technologies has extended its Series A funding round to $10 million after raising an additional $2 million from Moroccan investors. Founded in 2023 by Omar Alami, ORA Technologies develops a consumer super app combining food delivery, digital payments and e-commerce services. The new funding will support the expansion of its KOUL food delivery platform and ORA Cash digital wallet across Morocco.

What makes this one interesting from an ecosystem angle: ORA Technologies’ funding round stands out because it was backed entirely by Moroccan investors. African startups have traditionally relied on foreign venture capital from Europe, the US and the Middle East, making locally financed growth rounds relatively uncommon. Early traction is real: Kooul has reached more than 15,000 active customers in its first ten months, while ORA Cash signed up over 50,000 users within five months of launch.

🇪🇬 Mylerz | $2M+ | Logistics

Egypt-based last-mile delivery startup Mylerz has secured more than $2 million in a new funding round comprising a mix of equity and credit facilities. The company will use the funding to strengthen its domestic logistics network, open new fulfillment hubs, and support growing cross-border e-commerce operations. Mylerz currently operates 26 logistics hubs nationwide and aims to expand its network to more than 30 hubs in the near future.

🇪🇬 Reme-D | $1.45M Pre-Series A | Healthtech

Reme-D, an Egyptian healthtech startup developing and manufacturing molecular diagnostic solutions, has closed a $1.45 million Pre-Series A funding round. The investment was led by Anara Impact Capital. This is one of the first checks from Anara’s debut $48M impact fund, which closed earlier this year with a focus on learning, wellbeing, and climate startups across MENA.

AI MOVES

🇱🇧 Annahar Launches an AI Journalist

Lebanon’s Annahar Media Group has launched Nahar, its first artificial intelligence-powered news correspondent, as part of its efforts to modernize newsroom operations. The AI journalist is designed to assist editorial teams by scanning thousands of information sources within seconds, tracking global developments, comparing information, translating content, and summarizing reports and documents.

The AI correspondent was developed in partnership with Points Information Technology. The technology is intended to automate time-intensive research and information-gathering tasks, enabling journalists to dedicate more time to reporting, analysis and storytelling. Annahar is no stranger to AI firsts — the same outlet previously created an AI Lebanese president when the country had no sitting head of state. Worth watching how newsrooms across the region respond.

🇵🇰 Pakistan at the World AI Conference in Shanghai

Pakistan called for inclusive global governance of artificial intelligence and broader access to emerging technologies for developing nations. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar attended the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai on July 17, 2026. The position is consistent with Pakistan’s push to be part of the global AI conversation rather than just a recipient of it.

PAKISTAN: A RECORD-BREAKING WEEK FOR IT EXPORTS

This is the story Pakistan’s tech community has been waiting to announce. The Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) hailed Pakistan’s record $4.6 billion in IT exports during fiscal year 2025-26, saying the milestone reflected the country’s expanding global technology footprint and growing competitiveness despite war-like disruptions across the region. The association said Pakistan achieved the record export figure by expanding into new products, industry verticals and advanced technologies, including AI, robotics and automation.

The breakdown tells a more interesting story than the headline: The $4.6 billion figure makes IT Pakistan’s largest services export category at 46% of total services exports, with June 2026 alone generating $416 million, the highest single month on record and a 22.7% increase from June FY25. Freelancer earnings crossed $1 billion for the first time, a 50% year-on-year surge that pushed freelance contributions to 25% of total IT export value.

Pakistan’s first PSX tech listing of the fiscal year: Select Technologies Limited, a leading Pakistani technology company engaged in the manufacturing and assembly of smartphones and consumer appliances, successfully completed its Initial Public Offering, raising Rs. 3.02 billion. The offering comprised 88.9 million ordinary shares representing 10% of SELECT’s post-issue paid-up capital. FY2026 delivered 11 IPOs, the third highest in 25 years, raising USD 66 million, while average daily traded value reached an all-time high of USD 205 million across 537 listed companies.

Pakistan-Japan tech linkage: The Embassy of Pakistan in Tokyo, in collaboration with the Asia Web3 Alliance Japan, organized a Pakistan-Japan startup and innovation event to promote cooperation in AI, Web3, digital technologies and entrepreneurship. The event brought together representatives from government, industry, technology companies, investors and the startup ecosystem of both countries.

ECOSYSTEM & POLICY

The VC Gender Gap Is Getting Worse, Not Better

This H1 2026 data point shouldn’t get buried in deal flow coverage. Female-founded companies across all of MENA raised $2.5 million through 14 transactions in the first six months of 2026. That’s 0.14% of total capital. Not a rounding error, a structural failure. Worth a dedicated deep-dive.

MENA VC Needs an Exit Infrastructure

Saudi Arabia and the UAE now dominate the funding map, but their dominance also reveals how thin the wider regional market remains. Arab News ran a sharp op-ed this week on what MENA’s VC industry still lacks: a functioning exit pipeline. Plenty of seed and Series A rounds. Far fewer acquisitions or IPOs generating the returns that attract the next cycle of LPs.

Sanabil Accelerator Wraps 11th Cohort

500 Global and Sanabil Investments selected eight early-stage startups for the 11th cohort of the Sanabil Accelerator. The startups include Carevision, Emtethal, IBEA, Kami, Melon Digital, Raid AI, TPP and Xsquare, with a strong focus on AI-enabled products and infrastructure technologies addressing regional challenges.

WHAT TO WATCH

A few things worth tracking over the next two weeks:

Think’s execution: $8M is a strong pre-seed, but AI infrastructure is capital-intensive and the competitive landscape for compute is brutal. How fast can they actually deploy at scale?

ORA Technologies’ super app bet: Morocco has historically struggled to retain VC attention after an initial round. An entirely locally-funded $10M round is new territory. Can they build the network effects before running out of runway?

Keyper’s expansion: With $11M equity and a $30M sukuk facility, they have real firepower. The question is whether monthly rent payments can become the default expectation across the UAE market.

Pakistan’s $5B target: The government set a $5B IT export target. They hit $4.6B this year. With 5G rolling out and freelancer earnings accelerating, FY2027 looks like it clears it comfortably. Or does it?

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Sources: Wamda, Arab News, MAGNiTT, TechMoran, ProPakistani, Communicate Online, Business Recorder, Innovation Village, Wamda, Gulf Business