Happy Friday, friends 👋

Another quick reminder that our very good friends at HubSpot for Startups are hosting a free webinar on July 8 with Kareem Ayyad of Teammates.ai, digging into how companies across the GCC are deploying autonomous AI teammates to run core functions.

Awesome to see how many of you are already attending, and if, for some unknown reason, you haven’t registered yet, you can do so in just a couple of seconds 👉 here.

Now, let’s get into this week’s edition👇

This week’s round-up is a 5 min read:

In partnership with Hubspot for Startups

AI is no longer just a support tool. In this webinar, Kareem Ayyad, CEO of Teammates.ai, will breakdown how companies across the GCC are deploying autonomous AI teammates to run core functions – working 24/7 in 50+ languages, including all Arabic dialects.

Get a first look at how teams are cutting costs, speeding up operations, and scaling without extra headcount.

👉 Join the webinar to see how it's done.

AppliedAI (🇦🇪 UAE), an enterprise AI startup automating complex workflows in regulated sectors like healthcare and finance, has raised $55M in an oversubscribed Series A round from MEVP, G42, Bessemer Venture Partners, and e&, bringing its total funding to nearly $100M.

Related (🇦🇪 UAE), a loyalty and engagement tech company with 30M+ users across the GCC and Levant, has secured an $8M investment from Saudi-based Equivator to expand in KSA, launch AI and blockchain-powered tools, and integrate B2C platform Uplines.

Nowlun (🇪🇬 Egypt), an AI-powered logistics startup simplifying global shipping across MENA, has closed a $2.3M Seed round with an additional $600K from Ingressive Capital to accelerate development of its smart logistics assistant and expand across Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Morni (🇸🇦 KSA), a roadside assistance and mobility services platform digitising automotive repairs, towing, and insurance workflows, has received an undisclosed investment from STV’s NICE Fund (venture debt).

Roomz.rent (🇦🇪 UAE), a co-living platform offering fully managed, flexible room rentals with flatmate matching, has raised pre-Seed funding from Qora71 and regional angels to consolidate in Cairo and scale city-by-city across MENA.

Inside Valu’s EGX debut: With Amazon now on the cap table, we unpack the model behind Egypt’s most disciplined fintech, covering product strategy, underwriting logic, unit economics, investor dynamics, and the operators running the machine.

🚀 Stryde has acquired Qora71, the angel syndicate launched with backing from Hub71, and will relaunch it as Stryde71, a new venture capital vertical within its DFSA-regulated platform. Founded earlier this year by Youssef Salem, Qora71 onboarded 130+ investors, backed 50+ deals, and deployed $2M+ in under 5 months. The relaunch brings startup syndication into Stryde’s broader private markets infrastructure, enabling both qualified and retail investors to co-invest, while giving founders a single platform to raise from pre-seed to scale. Salem joins Stryde as Partner, with plans to scale the Qora71 model globally.

🌐 PoliCloud has raised €7.5 million in seed funding to scale its sovereign, eco-responsible cloud infrastructure, in a round led by Global Ventures. The French startup, founded by serial entrepreneur David Gurlé, provides modular GPU-rich micro–data centers for European governments and enterprises seeking alternatives to US hyperscalers. PoliCloud integrates proprietary hardware with Hivenet’s distributed compute software, allowing customers to lease unused capacity, reducing both cost and environmental impact. Global Ventures also backed Hivenet in 2022.

🔋 Nascent Materials, a US battery startup founded by ex-Tesla and iM3NY exec Chaitanya Sharma, has raised $2.3M in seed funding to commercialise a cathode manufacturing process that boosts energy density by up to 12% while cutting production costs by 30%. The round was led by SOSV with participation from UM6P Ventures, the VC arm of Morocco’s Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, and the New Jersey Innovation Evergreen Fund. Focused on LFP and LMFP chemistries, Nascent’s method uses lower-purity raw materials and delivers more consistent particles, potentially reducing reliance on China and enabling localised, cost-effective cathode production.

🎮 Spekter Games, a web3-hybrid gaming startup founded by Taehoon Kim in 2024, has raised $5 million in a seed round led by a16z Speedrun, with Impact46 joining alongside London Bay Venture Partners, BRV Capital Management, Chamaeleon, Accelerator Ventures, and Alumni Ventures. The startup is building crypto-integrated games for social platforms, with its first title, Spekter Agency, launched on Telegram to offer web3 rewards without compromising gameplay. For Impact46, the deal follows the launch of its $40 million gaming fund earlier this year, expanding its footprint in global interactive tech.

🔌 Kneron, a US-based on-device AI startup backed by Sequoia and Qualcomm, has secured a $2 million non-equity grant from Saudi Arabia’s National Technology Development Program (NTDP) to establish an AI chip R&D hub in Riyadh. The grant is part of NTDP’s RELOCATE initiative, which aims to attract 50 chip design firms and train 20,000 AI professionals by 2030. Kneron’s Riyadh subsidiary will advance its energy-efficient neural processing units for edge AI use in smart cities and enterprise systems. Back in October 2024, Bloomberg reported that Kneron was in talks to raise $300 million in its latest funding round, which could value the Taiwanese-American company at about $1 billion.

🎬 Saudi Arabia’s state-backed AI company HUMAIN has partnered with California-based Luma AI to launch CREATE, a global initiative using generative video for gaming, entertainment, and advertising. Announced at Cannes Lions, the collaboration will embed HUMAIN’s Arabic-first LLMs into Luma’s Ray2 model to produce culturally-adapted 3D content. Backed by the Public Investment Fund, HUMAIN says the partnership will enable real-time video generation and dynamic branding across Middle Eastern and global markets.

🔌 UAE-based AIREV has partnered with US chipmaker Tenstorrent to co-develop a high-performance agentic AI stack for enterprise and sovereign deployment. AIREV’s OnDemand platform — built for ERP and CRM integration across regulated sectors — will run natively on Tenstorrent’s AI chip architecture, starting with a UAE-based development node. Backed by G42’s Core42, AIREV aims to scale across North America, Asia, and the GCC, as Tenstorrent expands its global customer base and challenges Nvidia’s AI chip dominance.

🇮🇶 Netaj has launched Nawat, Iraq’s first venture studio, to co-build and invest in 40 early-stage startups a year. Based in Baghdad, Nawat offers hands-on support across ideation, MVP, and early growth stages, including bootcamps, mentorship, and investor access. Startups receive in-kind services worth $10K–$25K and direct funding of $25K–$250K via equity or convertibles. Netaj will double down on the top 5–10 startups each year.

🇪🇬 Aria Ventures, an Egypt-based deeptech venture studio, has launched a $1 million fund to back early-stage science-driven startups through 2026, with plans to scale to $4 million over four years. The studio targets sectors like AI, biotech, robotics, and nanotech, combining capital with hands-on support across R&D, market research, and product development. It recently launched the DeepTecher competition to scout cutting-edge research and spin it into investable startups.

🧠 Abu Dhabi-listed Phoenix Group is mulling a US listing of its mining and data centre arm as it pivots from pure crypto to AI infrastructure, per Semafor. The Bitcoin miner will double capacity to over 1 GW globally in the next two years, targeting rising AI demand while maintaining flexibility to switch back to crypto mining. CEO Munaf Ali says the spinout would allow Phoenix to tap US capital markets and benefit from tech-firm valuations. Already operational in Canada, Ethiopia, Oman, the UAE, and the US, Phoenix mined 350 BTC in Q1 and posted $31M in revenue — with a model that uses containerized rigs and surplus power to serve both AI and crypto workloads.

🎧 This week on VC React, we unpack Valu’s unconventional path to the EGX, decode what OCTA’s $20M credit line says about the future of startup finance, explore why “boring” startups might be the smartest bets, and break down Amjad Masad’s Replit teaming up with Saudi’s new AI powerhouse, HUMAIN.