MENA, Pakistan & GCC Tech Mid-Week Update Jul 28 – 5 Aug 2026

JULY 2026: THE MONTH IN NUMBERS

Wamda’s July report landed this week and the headline tells a mixed story. MENA startups raised $172.6 million across 45 deals in July 2026, a 16% increase from June, though the figure still sits 78% below July 2025’s totals.

The composition matters more than the number. Debt financing accounted for 56% of the total, compared to just 11.5% the previous month and 2% a year prior. Equity investment continued to lag. Saudi Arabia led the month. Startups in the Kingdom secured $106.6 million across 16 deals, accounting for nearly 62% of all capital raised. The UAE followed with the same number of transactions but attracted $46.6 million.

No mega deals or late-stage rounds were announced in July, leaving early-stage startups to dominate both deal value and volume. That’s actually the cleaner read on the market right now: selective, early-stage heavy, and increasingly debt-reliant for anything above seed.

DEALS THIS WEEK

🇦🇪 Epic Markets | $10M Pre-Seed | Fintech

UAE-based fintech Epic Markets raised $10 million in a pre-seed round from Karatage, the round’s sole investor, to develop a multi-asset brokerage platform for retail investors. Founded in 2026 by Kevin Kimmel and Brian Seegers, the startup is building a platform intended to provide individual investors with institutional-grade trade execution and professional trading infrastructure across multiple asset classes.

$10M pre-seed from a single investor is a notable bet. The pitch is essentially democratizing institutional trading infrastructure for retail. The UAE is a natural market for this given the density of high-net-worth retail investors and the region’s growing appetite for diversified asset access beyond property.

🇸🇦 Ash Games | $1.5M Seed | Gaming

Saudi Arabia-based game development studio Ash Games raised $1.5 million in seed funding, co-led by Merak Capital and Impact46 through the Merak Gaming Fund. Founded in 2022 by Anas Bakhsh, Yaser Al-Ahmadi and Saud Bakolka, Ash Games develops PC and console action-adventure titles inspired by Saudi culture, history and mythology. Its flagship title, Nomad, is scheduled for release on PC, PlayStation and Xbox in 2027.

Saudi gaming is no longer just investment in international studios. Culturally rooted IP, built domestically, targeting global audiences. Nomad is one to watch.

🇪🇬 Fincart | $2.8M Seed | E-commerce Ops

Egypt-based e-commerce operations platform Fincart raised an oversubscribed $2.8 million seed round co-led by Launch Africa and Antler MENAP, with participation from Yango Ventures, Five35 Ventures, Bluestream Capital, Hi2 Global and Kalahari Venture Labs. Founded in 2023 by Mostafa Masry and Nihal Ali, Fincart provides an AI-powered platform that allows merchants to manage shipping, customer engagement and cash advances through a single interface. The company integrates with more than 40 courier companies across Africa and has facilitated nearly 1 billion Egyptian pounds ($19.5 million) in gross merchandise value.

Oversubscribed round, real GMV, 40+ courier integrations. This is one of the more traction-backed early-stage deals to come out of Egypt this quarter.

🇶🇦 SkipCash | Undisclosed | Fintech

Qatar-based fintech SkipCash secured a strategic investment from Qatar International Islamic Bank to support its growth and regional expansion. Founded in 2019 by Mohammed Abdulaziz Al-Delaimi, SkipCash provides digital payment solutions including online payment gateways, merchant acquiring, QR payments, payment links, Tap to Phone services and integrated payment technologies. Terms were not disclosed. The QIIB backing matters more as a distribution signal than a capital event, giving SkipCash a direct route into the bank’s merchant and corporate base.

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🇸🇦 Growth Catalyst Fund I | $200M Target | PE for Saudi Mid-Market

Jada Fund of Funds, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund, committed as an early institutional backer to Growth Catalyst Fund I, a Saudi private equity fund targeting SR750 million ($200 million) to invest in mid-market companies across the Kingdom.

Led by Turki Al-Dayel, the fund will target founder-led upper-middle-market companies, with flexibility to invest in growth-stage and pre-IPO businesses that have outgrown venture capital funding. Growth Catalyst Fund I aims to help address Saudi Arabia’s estimated SR300 billion to SR500 billion SME financing gap.

This is one of the more structurally important announcements of the week. The gap between VC and IPO has been a persistent problem for Saudi startups that scale past Series B. A dedicated PE fund targeting that middle lane is exactly the kind of capital infrastructure the ecosystem needs.

🇸🇾 DoctorBook | $16K Pre-Seed | Healthtech

Syria-based health tech startup DoctorBook raised $16,000 in pre-seed funding to accelerate the digitization of medical appointment bookings in Syria. Founded in 2026 by Abdulrahman Al-Jandali and Abdulrahman Al-Khateeb, DoctorBook operates a platform connecting patients with healthcare providers. Small amount, but the signal matters: investor activity in Syria’s digital economy, however early stage, reflects the country’s ongoing reconstruction and the appetite to build consumer-facing tech in previously offline markets.

🇨🇦🇦🇪 ChatFeatured | $2M Pre-Seed | AI Search Visibility

UAE- and Lebanon-based BY Venture Partners participated in an oversubscribed $2 million pre-seed round for Canadian AI startup ChatFeatured, alongside Storytime Capital and Garage Capital. Founded in 2026 by Farris Nasr and Nithiiyan Skhanthan, ChatFeatured develops an answer engine optimization platform that helps brands improve visibility across AI-powered search platforms including ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the emerging discipline of getting brands cited by AI search rather than ranked by Google. BY Venture Partners backing this from the region signals that MENA-based VCs are increasingly writing checks into global AI tooling from day one, not just regional plays.

🇸🇦 SAUDI: AI PRODUCT LAUNCHES

DESAISIV Launches AI Pricing Engine for Corporate Health Insurance

Saudi Arabia-based insurtech DESAISIV launched its Fair Market Pricing Engine, an AI-driven solution designed to help enterprises make data-driven decisions on corporate health insurance pricing. Founded in 2022 by Sa’ed Khawaldeh and Mohammad Nabhan, DESAISIV has raised more than $8 million to date and serves over 600 organizations, managing corporate health insurance portfolios valued at more than SR2 billion ($540 million) across MENA.

Product launches from portfolio-stage startups don’t always get coverage, but $540M in managed insurance portfolio with an AI pricing layer on top is a real product with real enterprise scale behind it.

🇪🇬 EGYPT: MANUFACTURING SCALE

Simplex Opens Second Factory, Breaks Ground on Third

Egyptian CNC manufacturing startup Simplex inaugurated its second manufacturing facility in 10th of Ramadan City, spanning 40,000 sq. meters and involving investments totaling $50 million, while beginning construction of a third factory. Founded in 2013 by Ahmed Shaaban and Mohamed Mansour, Simplex designs, assembles and manufactures computer numerical control machines for industrial applications. The company also signed partnership and agency agreements in Jordan and Kuwait to strengthen its regional presence.

Egypt’s manufacturing tech sector rarely gets the same column inches as fintech. Simplex is quietly building one of the region’s more significant industrial tech footprints. A $50M physical investment in a second factory while breaking ground on a third is not a startup story anymore. It’s a scale story.

🇵🇰 PAKISTAN: WISE LAB GOES LIVE

Pakistan’s gender gap in entrepreneurship is stark. Only 1% of women in the country run their own business, compared to 21% of men. Ignite National Technology Fund’s answer is WISE Lab.

WISE Lab breaks down into three concrete tracks: incubation space and a cohort model for startups in Islamabad; training in business development, digital literacy, and investment readiness delivered nationwide; and capital, with up to five high-performing startups qualifying for grants of up to Rs. 2 million annually.

WISE Lab is run by a three-partner consortium. Jazz, Pakistan’s largest digital connectivity player, leads the consortium. The program is designed to reach 200 female micro-entrepreneurs annually through physical bootcamps across all provinces, including Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu & Kashmir.

Pakistan’s ecosystem has many training programs and pitch competitions. What distinguishes WISE Lab is the grants track tied to measurable outcomes Ignite is expected to monitor. Execution will determine whether it becomes a meaningful pipeline or another initiative on paper.

ECOSYSTEM MOVES

Jada’s Mid-Market PE Bet Is Bigger Than It Looks

Jada Fund of Funds was established to develop Saudi Arabia’s private capital ecosystem across venture capital, private equity, and private debt. Its backing of Growth Catalyst Fund I is a deliberate attempt to build the missing bridge between venture-backed startups and IPO-ready companies. The SR300-500B SME financing gap it’s targeting isn’t new, but institutional capital explicitly structured around that gap is.

BY Venture Partners Goes Global

The ChatFeatured deal points to something worth watching: Gulf-based early-stage VCs writing checks into North American and European AI companies at pre-seed. BY Venture Partners, operating out of the UAE and Lebanon, is positioning as a global early-stage fund with regional roots rather than a regional fund with occasional international exposure. More of this is coming.

WHAT TO WATCH

Epic Markets’ product reveal: $10M pre-seed is a strong starting position. The test is whether the platform can offer retail investors something meaningfully different from what Saxo, eToro, or regional incumbents already provide in the UAE market.

Ash Games’ Nomad: A 2027 release on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox for a Saudi-culture-rooted action-adventure title is either a breakout moment for regional gaming IP or an ambitious timeline that needs careful management. The sector is watching.

WISE Lab cohort quality: Ignite has the structure right. The question is whether the Jazz partnership translates into real distribution and whether the grant recipients in year one have enough traction to attract follow-on capital from the private sector.

Growth Catalyst Fund I’s first close: Jada’s commitment anchors the fund, but the final $200M target requires additional LP commitments. Who comes in alongside Jada will determine how quickly the fund can move.

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Sources: Arab News, Wamda, Zawya, Innovation Village, Arab Founders Network, Startup.pk, ProPakistani, Lucidity Insights, entArabi