Happy Friday! Between the Abu Dhabi Blockchain Centre’s new $100M VC fund and Tether’s AED stablecoin, it feels like 2021 Web3 hype all over again. A lot to get through this week, so let’s get to it.

P.S. If you missed this week’s deep dive on how MENA-based startups like HeroGo, The Waste Lab, and Uvera are tackling food waste and the challenges of raising investment in this space, you can check it out here.

This week’s round-up is a 7 min read:

• 💰 Pakistan’s PostEx raises $7.3 million Series A to expand into KSA

• 👾 Gate Ventures, Abu Dhabi Blockchain Center launch $100M fund

• 🏍️ Indonesia’s GojekFood to expand to the Middle East in 2024

• 🔈 Catch-up on Episode 8 of the VC React Podcast

🚀 Startup funding round-up

E Daddy (🇦🇪 UAE), a sustainable mobility startup set to manufacture EVs end-to-end in Dubai, has raised $15 million to launch its first fully electric motorcycle in Q1 2025.

Yuze (🇦🇪 UAE), a fintech specialising in providing business accounts for startups and SMEs in emerging markets, has raised a $30 million funding round, led by Osten Investments.

Resal (🇸🇦 KSA), an e-gifting platform offering digital solutions for loyalty programs and alt payments, has raised $9 million in a Series A round backed by Derayah Financial Ventures, VentureSouq, and several family offices and angels investors.

Mithu (🇸🇦 KSA), a Web3 loyalty platform that aggregates loyalty programmes into a single, gamified app to increase customer engagement in the food and beverage industry, has secured $500,000 in pre-seed funding from Adaverse.

Yalla Plus (🇸🇦 KSA), a foodtech startup offering an integrated POS system for restaurants and cafes, has closed a $2.7 million Seed round led by Merak Capital, with participation from Khwarizmi Ventures and Isometry Capital.

HeroGo (🇦🇪 UAE), a food tech subscription platform, which allows businesses and consumers to access surplus food from local farmers and wholesalers at reduced prices, has secured an undisclosed investment amount led by Angel Spark.

Asas (🇸🇦 KSA), an IT services provider has raised $320,000 in pre-seed investment led by angel investors, for its Resquad AI platform, which enables software development companies to flexibly share their available developers with each other or with external clients.

NoorNation (🇪🇬 Egypt), a climatetech startup providing decentralised energy and water solutions through its flagship LifeBox product, has received an undisclosed investment from KBW Ventures.

Logistics / Fintech

💰 Pakistan’s PostEx raises $7.3 million Series A round to expand its platform for e-commerce merchants to Saudi Arabia

🚚 Pakistani startup PostEx, which offers financial and logistics services to online merchants, is gearing up for market expansion, starting with Saudi Arabia this year, followed by the UAE. This comes on the heels of raising a $7.3 million pre-Series A round.

• Founded in 2020 by Omer Khan, Saad Mahmood, Babar Razzaq, and Adil Naseem, PostEx initially began as a third-party logistics provider for e-commerce merchants. It has since evolved into a comprehensive platform offering Shariah-compliant, non-dilutive financing to resolve cash flow challenges for merchants.

💰 Investor lowdown: The round was led by Dubai-headquartered Conjunction Capital, along with Dash Ventures, Sanabil500, VSQ, FJ Labs, and Zayn VC.

• Prior to its pre-Series A, PostEx had raised $8.6 million from investors including Global Founder Capital, MSA Capital, and Shorooq Partners.

⚙️ Break it down

Online merchants in Pakistan face growth barriers due to 95% of transactions being cash on delivery, causing working capital constraints as couriers take 10-15 days to settle payments.

PostEx addresses this issue by providing upfront payments for cash-on-delivery orders, coupled with integrated logistics services.

🐂 PostEx bull case

1. Leveraging its role as a logistics partner, enabled PostEx to gain deep insights into e-commerce merchants, enhancing its ability to offer tailored financing solutions. They’ve provided $90 million in loans to over 8,000 businesses to date.

2. In August 2022, PostEx expanded its logistics network by acquiring Call Courier, growing from three key markets to over 650 cities.

3. The startup became profitable in November last year, reaching $21 million in annual recurring revenue with 4 million monthly transactions, and is on track to surpass $25 million by year-end.

🔮 Flashforward

🇸🇦 In the next three months, PostEx plans to enter Saudi Arabia and raise an additional $15 million to bolster its presence there. It’s applying for a financing license and has launched a pilot with local merchants.

🇦🇪 Simultaneously, PostEx is testing its platform in the UAE, with plans to launch after establishing itself in Saudi Arabia.

🇵🇰 Back home in Pakistan, PostEx aims to expand its workforce from 6,500 to 9,000 across 600 cities by the end of the year.

💰 VC round-up

🇦🇪 The Blockchain Centre in Abu Dhabi and Singapore-based Gate Ventures, the VC arm of Gate.io, have launched a $100 million fund to invest in early-stage Web3 startups. This fund, Gate Ventures’ third, will target technical breakthroughs globally, with a focus on the Middle East, Asia, and the US. It also aims to strengthen the UAE’s role as a central hub in the global digital economy.

🇸🇦 Nearly 40% of MENA startups have received funding linked to Saudi's SWFs, according to ClearWorld’s ‘The MENA Economic Context 2024’ report. The report highlights that 50% of the market cap of startups in the UAE and Egypt, and 99% in Saudi Arabia, have seen participation from Saudi’s SWFs, either directly or via VC firms they fund.

💰 Global investments round-up

🇸🇦🇬🇧 Aramco Ventures has co-led a $10.3 million Series A round for UK-based climatetech startup Promethean Particle, who are primarily focused on developing the use of MOFs in the fight against climate change, particularly for carbon capture, water harvesting, and gas storage applications.

Great one-minute explainer here.

💸 Acquisitions round-up

💳 Al Rajhi Bank published its Q2 2024 financial statement, which shows that the bank acquired a 65% stake in Drahim, a Saudi-based fintech, in June 2024, without disclosing the value of the acquired stake. Drahim was founded in 2021 and was part of Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 & Sanabil 500 MENA Seed Accelerator cohorts, it also has open banking and robo-advisory licenses from the Central Bank of Saudi (SAMA).

💰 Meteora Developers (🇦🇪 UAE) has acquired Emirati property crowdfunding platform Maisour in a multimillion-dollar deal. Founded in 2021, Maisour enables global investors to access the UAE property market through fractional ownership. This acquisition allows Meteora to integrate with Maisour’s platform, expanding real estate investment opportunities and lowering entry barriers for investors.

🖥️ Tech round-up

🚐 Jahez reported its H1 2024 financials, revealing a 22.3% YoY increase in revenue to $272M (1.022B SAR), despite a 26% drop in profit due to investments in geographic expansion. Delivery revenue grew by 4.8% YoY, driven by higher order volumes and expansion into non-central Saudi regions, now accounting for 42% of total orders in the kingdom, along with 6x growth outside Saudi, primarily in Kuwait.

🏍️ GoTo Group is expanding GojekFood to the Middle East in 2024, signalling a return to growth after its merger with ByteDance's Tokopedia. The MENA region's food delivery market, though less competitive than Southeast Asia, will see GojekFood competing with talabat, noon, Deliveroo, Careem, and the upcoming launch of Meituan’s Keeta. Zomato previously exited the UAE market, highlighting the region's challenges.

💵 Tether wants to launch a new stablecoin pegged to the UAE dirham (AED). The company announced the move today, noting that it will launch the new stablecoin in partnership with Green Arcon Investments and Phoenix Group. The new stablecoin will be fully backed by liquid reserves based in the UAE. It marks another step for Tether as it expands its stablecoin offerings across currencies and blockchain networks.

🕹️ Veteran Mohamed El Sheakh has launched Games Ventures, a mobile-focused company aimed at growing the MENA mobile games ecosystem. With over 20 years of experience at Apple, Microsoft, and Nokia, Mohamed's goal is to build profitable mobile games for the MENA region and beyond. Games Ventures also released its first 'Middle East Mobile Games Ecosystem Report' in August 2024, highlighting key players and initiatives in the region.

💳 EFG Holdings released their Q2 2024 earnings, highlighting Valu, their Egypt-based BNPL platform, which saw a 43% YoY increase in users, reaching 1.66 million, a 78% growth in transactions, and a 59% rise in loan values to $59M. Valu now partners with over 7,000 merchants and operates in 13 cities across Egypt.

💰 VC React Podcast: Episode 8

🎧 In this week's episode of the VC React Podcast, we had a really candid discussion about the challenges female founders in the region face, after another disappointing month where funding for female-led startups accounted for just 0.01% of total funding in July.

We also reflected on the surge in MENA startup investments last month, with Egypt leading the way after a difficult few months, and examined why fintech continues to dominate.

To round things off, we dug into the details of MealPlanet's $6 million seed round just eight months after launch and explored Magic Leap's continued ability to attract significant investment despite its turbulent history.
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This week Ahmad and I were delighted to be joined by the fantastic:

• Amal Dokhan (Managing Partner at 500 Global)

• Hamed Masri (Partner at Silicon Badia)

• Issa Aghabi (Founder & Managing Director at Access Bridge Ventures)

📆 Events and opportunities

Applications are now open for Cohort 6 of Plug and Play's Egypt program, in partnership with the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), USAID, and the National Bank of Egypt (NBE).

Hosted at the Sultan Hussein Kamel CREATIVA Innovation Hub, this 3-month program is ideal for MVP or growth-stage startups across various industries, including E-commerce, Fintech, Cybersecurity, Enterprise Tech, Sustainability, and more.

Learn more and apply before August 25th 👇

📰 Recommended Reads

• Stephanie Nour Prince. Breaking Barriers: A Deep Dive into Women’s Role in MENA/GCC Tech

• Mohammed Alzubi. The story behind our investment in Brev and its acquisition by NVIDIA

• Nafez Dakkak. Memory & Models: The Power of The Analogies We Live By

• Eric Newcomer. Bolt's Audacious Letter to Investors