Happy Friday, friends 👋

Before we get into this week’s edition, a quick note: our very good friends at Maqsam are hosting a virtual event on July 30 to unveil their latest Arabic‑first AI support tools, designed to help service teams work smarter and deliver standout customer experiences across the region. We’ll be tuning in, and we’d love for you to join us! Learn more here.

The only place to start this week is Anthropic’s very public hemming and hawing over Gulf capital. In a leaked Slack memo published by WIRED, CEO Dario Amodei concedes the company may now pursue funding from Gulf sovereigns, despite previous staunch opposition. Needless to say, Amodei’s claim that “no bad person should ever benefit from our success” has not gone down particularly well. Our editorial illustration casts Amodei as Janus for good reason. The full story here.

Zooming out, Abu Dhabi’s gravity well continues to deepen. 500 Global has officially planted its flag in the “capital of capital,” pledging up to $300 million over the next two years to support startups focused on climate resilience, digital infrastructure, and inclusive fintech across Africa, Brazil, India, and the Gulf. The effort will be led by Dr. Alaa Murabit, co-author of the UN SDGs.

In Dubai, Qlub has raised a $30 million Series B to take its QR-based dining payments platform from regional staple to global standard. And in Saudi, the number of foreign startups licensed to operate has grown 118% year-on-year with the Ministry of Investment issuing 550 new permits in the first half of 2025.

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

This week’s round-up is a 5 min read:

In partnership with Maqsam

أنت مدعو إلى أول حدث افتراضي من مقسم، نظام خدمة العملاء الذكي بقوة اللغة العربية، والمبني محلياً ليخدم احتياجات عالمنا العربي، حيث نسلط الضوء على مستقبل الذكاء الاصطناعي العربي في تجربة العملاء.

:ما يمكنك توقعه

- إطلاق مجموعة جديدة من المنتجات والميزات الذكية المصمّمة لدعم فِرَق خدمة العملاء وتمكينهم من العمل بكفاءة أكبر.

- نظرة على كيفية فهم ذكائنا الاصطناعي للغة العربية بما فيها من لهجات وتعبيرات، فهو مدرّب عليها من الأصل.

- الكشف عن كيف تساعدكم أدواتنا في خفض التكاليف والعبء على ممثلي الخدمة ورفع مستوى رضا العملاء وتحسين دقة الردود وجودة الخدمة.

You’re invited! Join Maqsam’s very first virtual event and see how locally built, Arabic‑first AI is transforming customer experience for businesses across the Arab world.

What’s on the agenda?

Qlub (🇦🇪 UAE), a contactless dining payment platform enabling diners to instantly view menus, order, and pay via smartphone, has raised $30 million in Series B funding co-led by Shorooq Partners and Cherry Ventures, with participation from e&, Mubadala Investments, and Legend Capital, to fuel global expansion, enhance product analytics, and deepen integration with hospitality platforms.

Flend (🇪🇬 Egypt), an FRA-regulated embedded lending platform offering fully digital working capital loans for SMEs, has raised $3 million in a blended equity and debt Seed round led by Egypt Ventures, with participation from Camel Ventures, Sukna Ventures, Plus VC, Banque Misr, and regional family offices, alongside debt facilities from MSMEDA and local banks.

Journify (🇦🇪 UAE), an AI-powered data activation platform helping GCC brands activate first-party data across platforms like Meta, TikTok, and Google, has secured an undisclosed strategic investment from Shorooq Partners, Bunat Ventures, and Plug and Play to accelerate its AI roadmap, expand its team, and grow across the Gulf, after doubling its valuation and growing revenue 5x in the past six months.

ZabonEx (🇴🇲 Oman), a predictive analytics startup delivering customer-level demand forecasting for F&B producers, distributors, and retailers, has raised $100,000 in pre-Seed funding led by Future Fund Oman and ITHCA Group, to enhance its predictive engine, expand its tech team, and build strategic partnerships across Oman’s food supply chain ahead of regional expansion.

SafaQat (🇴🇲 Oman), a digital procurement platform streamlining competitive tendering for SMEs, has raised an undisclosed strategic investment from Oman Future Fund and Idrak Group to enhance its AI-powered infrastructure, improve user experience, expand into government procurement, and enter new markets.

Feature

In a leaked internal memo, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei confirms that the company is now exploring investment from the UAE and Qatar – a reversal of its 2024 stance on Gulf capital, when it declined funding from Saudi Arabia over “national‑security concerns.”

In a Slack message obtained by WIRED, Amodei wrote:

“Unfortunately, I think the idea that ‘no bad person should ever benefit from our success’ is a pretty difficult principle to run a business on.”

He added:

“There is a truly giant amount of capital in the Middle East, easily $100B or more. If we want to stay on the frontier, we gain a very large benefit from having access to this capital. Without it, it is substantially harder to stay on the frontier.”

🌱 500 Global has launched a new Sustainable Growth practice out of Abu Dhabi, pledging to invest up to $300 million over the next two years into startups tackling climate adaptation, food and health systems, fertility, digital infrastructure, and gender equity across Africa, Brazil, the Gulf, and India. The new unit will be led by Dr. Alaa Murabit, a former Gates Foundation executive and UN SDG co-author, with a mandate to structure co-investments alongside sovereign wealth funds, governments, and philanthropic partners, translating national priorities, like Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, into actionable venture theses.

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia accounted for 56% of all MENA venture capital deployed in H1 2025, with VC investments reaching $860 million, a 116% year-on-year surge that already surpasses its full-year 2024 total. The Kingdom also recorded a new high of 114 deals (+31% YoY), driven by sovereign capital, the LEAP program, and new fund and accelerator launches targeting early-stage startups. This comes as the number of foreign startups licensed to operate in Saudi Arabia grew 118% year-on-year. The Ministry of Investment issued 550 new permits in the first half of 2025. The UAE followed with $447 million (+84% YoY) and a comparable number of deals.

🇪🇬 Lime Consumer Finance, a wholly owned entity of First Abu Dhabi Bank Group, has officially launched in Egypt with a $9.4 million investment and a focus on education financing. Licensed by the FRA, Lime offers instalment plans of up to EGP 1 million across nurseries, schools, and universities, with plans to expand into broader life financing. Backed by a multidisciplinary board and digital-first credit infrastructure, Lime aims to address Egypt’s financial inclusion and private education boom through fast, structured lending solutions.

📈 Wio Invest, the ADQ-owned digital investment platform, has surpassed $1 billion in Assets Under Administration (AUA) less than two years after launch. The Abu Dhabi-based platform has also processed over $4 billion in order volume year-to-date, expanding from US equities into UAE markets, virtual assets, and managed portfolios. Integrated with Wio Personal, the app allows instant account setup and real-time settlement, with high user engagement driven by recurring investments in US tech stocks, crypto, and index funds. Wio Wealth, its new passive portfolio service, is currently fee-free until end-2025.

💸 Fintech remittance app Pesa, which serves 150 k+ users across Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia (all markets where it is licensed), has entered the UAE with an AED wallet that lets Nigerians in Dubai send money home in near-real time at transparent, no-hidden-fee rates. The Toronto-headquartered startup, backed by undisclosed seed funding from North American and UK angels, adds the Gulf launch to its growing global footprint as it positions itself as the preferred remittance rail for the Nigerian diaspora.

🤖 Saudi Arabia has kicked off its first major robotaxi trial in Riyadh, a 12-month pilot led by the Transport General Authority, in partnership with Uber, China’s WeRide, and UK-based AiDriver. The service connects 13 locations, including King Khalid International Airport and Princess Nourah University, with autonomous vehicles operating under supervision.

Until now, Saudi had limited AV trials to campus zones. This marks a shift to full public deployment as it moves to match the UAE’s more advanced AV rollout. WeRide, which began operating in the Kingdom this year, is expected to commercialise its robotaxi services by end-2025.

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🎧 This week on VC React, we watch Arabic AI find late‐stage traction, see a Moroccan startup chase the “one‐app‐to‐rule‐them‐all” dream, get the inside scoop on Saudi’s first embedded‐insurance rails, and track a global talent tug‐of‐war that’s ripping startups out of their own cap tables.