1. Tumodo (🇦🇪 UAE), an online business travel platform that allows businesses to manage expenses transparently, has raised $35 million in a pre-seed round co-led by MENA-focused angel investors.

2. Zeal (🇪🇬 Egypt), a fintech startup that provides a SmartPOS Plugin, which enables credit card machines to identify, segment, and retarget in-store customers, has raised $4 million in a round led by Raed Ventures and Cur8 Capital, along with strategic angel investors.

3. Analog (🇦🇪 UAE), an edge computing company aiming to develop AI-powered solutions that will enhance the speed and operating efficiency of individuals and businesses, has received an undisclosed investment from UAE-based AI and cloud computing giant G42.

4. Bosta (🇪🇬 Egypt), a logistics start-up offering its users first, middle, and last-mile delivery, guaranteeing a next-day delivery service across the globe, has raised an undisclosed funding amount from Axian Group to expand its services across MENA.

🏥 Here's Yodawy! The Egypt-based healthtech startup bridging the gap between pharmacies, insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, and patients through its pharmacy benefits manager platform.

And Ezdehar, an Egypt-based PE firm, just invested $10 million to acquire a minority stake in the company.

• Founded in 2018 by Karim Khashaba, Yasser Abdel Gawad, and Sherief El-Feky, the healthtech start-up is partnered with over 3,000 pharmacies across Egypt, and has delivered over 6 million prescriptions since launching.

💰 Investor lowdown: This investment marks Ezdehar's first venture into the healthtech space and aligns with its strategy to invest $50 million via its Mid-Cap Fund II in various sectors, including medical, manufacturing, insurance, and retail, targeting up to four Egyptian companies.

• This comes on the heels of Yodawy's impressive $16 million raise in the first stage of its Series B funding in February 2023, a round co-led by Delivery Hero Ventures and Global Ventures."

🧩 Fragmented landscape

Egypt's digital healthcare market is expected to reach $877 million in 2024.

But until recently it was pretty fragmented, with a glaring gap in the market between pharmacies and insurance companies, as well as a lack of automation and digitalisation in the sector.

As an example, more than 90% of Egypt’s prescriptions and insurance claims are recorded with paper. 

No big deal, right? Well, actually it is. 

Anachronisms like this affect every player in the value chain, leading to issues ranging from prescription errors to long processing times and queues at pharmacies and hospitals.

🛠️ Break it down

Yodawy, which means “to heal” in Arabic, handles the prescription cycle from start to finish 👇

🔮 Flashforward

Yodawy will use the fresh investment from Ezdehar to bolster its expansion efforts, focusing on enlarging its customer base, enhancing its tech-driven prescription fulfilment services, and adding greater value to the healthcare services market.

🏠 Meet Silkhaus! A UAE-based proptech startup digitising short-term rentals across emerging markets.

And, they just secured a “multi-million-dollar” pre-Series A financing from San Francisco's Partners for Growth (PFG).

• The company was founded in 2021 by Aahan Bhojani and Ashmin Varma, and has grown 120% since launching 12 months ago.

💰 Investor lowdown: The investment provides Silkhaus access to an additional multi-million dollar credit line to support its expansion plans.

• Silkhaus raised $7.75 million from global investors back in 2022, in what was one of the largest seed rounds in the history of the GCC.

😷 Post-pandemic world

The size of the market opportunity for asset owners across emerging markets like MENA, South Asia and Southeast Asia?

Silkhaus anticipates it could grow to $18 billion by 2026.

It’s clear that tech will play an outsized role with the ambition of digitising a very fragmented market of property owners and managers who want to increase their property yields.

And with business travel ramping up, leisure travel steadily moving towards STRs, and remote work becoming more pervasive, if a platform could remove the variability of quality from the rental decision in emerging markets - we really think they could be on to something…

Enter Silkhaus 👋

🛠️ Break it down

Silkhaus are aiming to digitise short-term rental operations, and simplify the process of finding quality accommodations in these markets.

🏘️ For property owners. Silkhaus provides an operating system - for both large-scale and individual landlords- to manage high-quality short-term rentals. 

This system includes tools for pricing, revenue management, and distribution, offering a one-stop solution for property owners to maximise their returns.

• The company claims that their property owners earn on average 20-40% more income than through traditional rental models. 

🙋 For the guest. They ensure that the properties listed are of high quality and well-maintained, catering and personalising the experience for guests whether they are traveling for business or leisure.

• You can also avail of a discount of up to 10% if you book for more than 7 days, or up to 20% off for more than 30 days. 

The company also has a backend marketplace for third-party vendors, streamlining the management of these properties, and leverages around 60 distribution channels, including Airbnb, for its rental listings. 

🔮 Flashforward: 

The fresh funding will be used to expand Silkhaus's operations across the GCC.

They recently launched in Abu Dhabi in November 2023, signalling the beginning of their planned growth into more cities in the region like Riyadh in the near future.

1. Aramco (🇸🇦 KSA), Saudi Arabia’s oil giant, has announced the allocation of an additional $4 billion to its global VC arm, Aramco Ventures. This will take Aramco’s overall VC allocation to $7.5 billion, including the $500 million VC fund Wa’ed Ventures, which focuses on developing the startup ecosystem in Saudi Arabia. The new funding will support global companies at different stages, aligning with its focus on new energies, chemicals, industrial sectors, and digital tech.

2. Droobi Health (🇶🇦Qatar) a healthtech has merged with India-based digital healthcare provider Smit.fit to form DroobiSmit. The new entity will be positioned as a digital healthcare provider for chronic health conditions across the GCC and South Asia regions, and will move its HQ to Singapore.

• Filter bubbles. How social media algorithms 'flatten' our culture by making decisions for us

• Oops. Apple AirDrop leaks user data like a sieve. Chinese authorities say they’re scooping it up.

• Not so untraceable. How a 27-Year-Old Codebreaker Busted the Myth of Bitcoin’s Anonymity

• Guess who. Welcome back to the Unicorn Club, 10 years later

👋 Message from the team

Thanks for reading! Have a terrific weekend and we’ll see you all again on Tuesday as our Behind The Build series takes centre stage!

FYI, we’re still working on our upcoming MENA edtech series - it just continues to balloon in size with each passing week!

It’ll be worth the wait… we hope!

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