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Happy Friday! The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is backing Elon Musk’s xAI with a $5B funding round, valuing the startup at $50B. Meanwhile, the UAE’s MGX, a collaboration between Mubadala and G42, is reportedly exploring a stake in OpenAI. Consider the regional AI arms race in full swing.

Enjoy this week’s edition 👇

This week’s round-up is a 5 min read:

• 👓 Dubai-based eyewa raises $100M Series C, led by General Atlantic, to expand its footprint with 100 new stores

• 🛵 Delivery Hero boosts size of Talabat's Dubai IPO to $2 billion

• 📞 Aramco Digital mulls $1 billion investment in US-based 5G software company Mavenir

• 🇶🇦 Qatar Investment Authority joins $5B funding round for Elon Musk's AI startup, xAI

In partnership with Gamma

🚀 Startup funding round-up

Cipher (🇸🇦 KSA), a cybersecurity platform providing a range of services, including risk assessment, penetration testing, security awareness training, threat detection, rapid response and recovery, has raised $13.3 million in a pre-IPO investment round from Impact46.

Sylndr (🇪🇬 Egypt), a used car marketplace, secured a $7.46 million capital facility with EFG Hermes as the sole financial advisor and lenders including EFG Corp-Solutions, Bank NXT, and EG Bank.

PTS (🇲🇦 Morocco), a fintech offering advanced tools for digitising traditional banking cards, has raised $500,000 in investment from BMCE Capital Investments, the private equity arm of the BMCE Capital Group, for an undisclosed stake in the company.

Fascano (🇴🇲 Oman), an online food ordering service, has closed its second investment round led by Oman Future Fund with participation from the Oman Investment Authority and Cyfr Capital.

🇸🇦 Flat6Labs Riyadh graduated its fourth cohort of 10 startups, with each startup receiving up to $133k in equity funding from the program:

• CAMION (KSA 🇸🇦) – freight TMS for first-mile logistics

• Colada (KSA 🇸🇦) – AI-powered food discounts

• Devsy (KSA 🇸🇦) – AI-driven talent platform

• dPhish (KSA 🇸🇦) – anti-phishing SaaS

• Hollat (KSA 🇸🇦) – enterprise CRM for compliance

• Mrrha (KSA 🇸🇦) – secure C2C marketplace

• Fezlee (KSA 🇸🇦) – logistics aggregator

• Cyberni ( KSA 🇸🇦) – dark web threat intel

• Units (KSA 🇸🇦) – digital warehousing

• Zofa (KSA 🇸🇦) – clinic operations platform

Fundraising

Dubai-based eyewa raises $100M Series C, led by General Atlantic, to expand its footprint with 100 new stores

👓 eyewa, a Dubai-based startup offering prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light glasses, and contact lenses through a DTC e-commerce and retail platform across five Middle Eastern markets, has raised $100 million in a Series C round.

• The company was founded by Anass Boumediene, Mehdi Oudghiri, and Abdullah AlRugaib, all former Bain & Company consultants. Between 2015 and 2017, co-CEOs Boumediene and Oudghiri led Foodpanda’s regional operations under Rocket Internet and Delivery Hero, scaling the food-delivery business 50x in three years and taking it to profitability — an experience that inspired them to build Eyewa.

💰 Investor lowdown: The round was led by global growth investor General Atlantic, with participation from Badwa Capital and Turmeric Capital, bringing Eyewa’s total funding to $130 million since its 2017 launch.

• This funding aligns with General Atlantic’s push into the MENAT region, highlighted by its new Riyadh office. The firm has invested nearly $1 billion in the region, with stakes in companies like Property Finder and Trendyol Group.

⚙️ Breaking it down

Eyewa began as an e-commerce retailer for third-party eyewear brands but quickly pivoted to creating its own in-house brands, addressing unmet regional needs. Today, 96% of its revenue stems from these proprietary lines.

🐂 Bull case

While Boumediene hasn’t disclosed specific sales figures, Eyewa is profitable and experiencing over 50% year-over-year revenue growth.

• In 2021, the startup raised a $21 million Series B to expand its footprint.

• Since then, Eyewa has grown to 150 wholly-owned stores (no franchises) and employs 1,300 people, making it the largest eyewear retailer in Saudi Arabia by store count and the fastest-growing globally.

For comparison:

• US-based Warby Parker took seven years to reach 100 stores.

• India’s Lenskart achieved the same milestone in six years.

🥊 Competition

Eyewa’s biggest rival is Magrabi, a legacy retailer founded in 1927. Following its merger with Rivoli, Magrabi now operates nearly 290 stores across the region.

🔮 Flashforward

Eyewa plans to open 100 additional stores in six countries, with Qatar on the horizon in 2025. A new production facility and fulfilment centre in Riyadh will launch next quarter to support this rapid expansion.

💰 VC & PE round-up

🇯🇴🇸🇦 Jordan’s ISSF has invested $5 million in Vision Ventures’ Saqr Fund II, which supports early-stage startups across pre-seed to pre-Series B stages. Notable investments from the fund include Faceki, Rewaa, NearPay, and Ejari. Earlier this year SVC contributed $15M to Saqr Fund II, marking their second time as an anchor investor in a Vision Ventures fund. Earlier this year, ISSF also backed MSA Novo’s MENA Fund, Propeller Ventures II, and VentureSouq Fund II.

🤳 Shorooq, has committed AED 30 million to the 1 Billion Pitches competition, launched in partnership with the 1 Billion Followers Summit. Combined with AED 20 million from the Summit, the competition offers AED 50 million to support startups and individuals with innovative, content-focused ideas.Out of 500 global submissions, 25 have been shortlisted for the pre-final round. The top 10 finalists will pitch to a panel of investors, competing for funding and support to bring their ideas to life.

🇸🇦🇯🇴 Saudi Arabia’s Naif Al Rajhi Investment has acquired a strategic stake in Jordan’s AI-driven Arabic content platform, Mawdoo3. Founded in 2010, Mawdoo3 focuses on AI and large language models for Arabic, with plans to expand into Saudi Arabia. The platform previously raised $25M, including a $10M Series B in 2019.

🌍 Global investments round-up

📱 Dubai-based Daher Investments has joined a $5M Seed funding round for Reactiv, a mobile commerce platform founded in 2023 by ex-Shopify employees Zach Elias and Ross Correia. The round was led by Bonfire Ventures with participation from Foxe Capital and others. Reactiv’s AI-powered platform enables brands to efficiently manage mobile apps, streamline updates, and personalise customer experiences.

📞 Aramco Digital, the tech arm of Saudi Aramco, is reportedly poised to invest $1 billion in Mavenir, a US-based 5G software company, for a significant minority stake. This deal, which values Mavenir at $3 billion, could provide a lifeline to the struggling Texas-based firm, which has faced financial troubles, including missed debt payments and default warnings.

🇶🇦 Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), is set to participate in a $5 billion funding round for Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, now valued at $50 billion, surpassing the $44 billion Musk paid for Twitter in 2022. The QIA joins Valor Equity Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz in backing xAI, which was founded in 2023 as a rival to OpenAI and has raised $11 billion this year.

Premium insight

Under Tareq Amin, an AI advocate and former Rakuten telecom executive, Aramco Digital’s potential investment in Mavenir reflects a strategic move to integrate AI into RAN technologies. Mavenir’s focus on open RAN aligns with evolving telco demands for flexibility, despite its struggles to compete with giants like Ericsson and Nokia.

For Saudi Arabia, the deal is a step toward diversifying its economy and gaining a foothold in the geopolitically significant telecom sector. However, with the RAN market shrinking — revenues fell 11% in 2023, with further declines expected — and competitors investing billions annually in R&D, this is a high-risk, long-term play. Stabilising Mavenir could open doors to key contracts like Vodafone’s, but success will require patience and sustained investment.

📈 Public markets

🛵 Delivery Hero has increased its stake in Talabat's IPO to 20% from 15%, capitalizing on strong investor demand for what is set to be the largest offering in the UAE this year. The IPO will offer 4.7 billion shares at AED 1.60 each, aiming to raise $2 billion and valuing Talabat at $10.2 billion. Key investors include the Emirates Strategic Investment Fund, Abu Dhabi Retirement Pensions and Benefits Fund, and Emirates International Investment Company, contributing a total of AED 918 million. The IPO subscription runs from November 19 to 28, with Talabat set to list on the Dubai Financial Market on December 10. Its ambitious dividend plan includes $100 million in Q4 2024, followed by $400 million in 2025-2026, and ongoing distributions of 90% of net income semi-annually.

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia’s leading beauty e-commerce platform, Nice One, plans to list 30% of its share capital on the Tadawul through an IPO of 34.65 million shares, including 29.15 million existing shares and 5.5 million new shares. Proceeds will support working capital, brand development, logistics, and other business goals. Founded in 2017 by Omar and Abdulrahman AlOlayan, Nice One offers over 28,000 products from 1,200+ brands. The founders, who currently hold 74%, will reduce their stake through the IPO. The company reported $208.6 million in revenue for 2023 and $66.7 million in Q1 2024, reflecting a 61.2% year-on-year growth.

 🤝 Acquisitions

👨‍🏫 Iraq-based edtech startup Eduba, founded in Baghdad in 2019 by Azad Hassan, Haider Shaaban, and Raed Kadhem, has been acquired by an undisclosed telecommunications conglomerate for a seven-figure sum. Initially launched as a school management app, Eduba gained significant traction among private schools and was one of the few to receive accreditation from Iraq's Ministry of Education.

➡️ 🌍 New market entrants

💧 UK-based Watercycle Technologies has secured $5.6M in Series A funding to expand its mineral recovery systems, targeting desalination projects in the MENA region by converting brine waste into valuable resources. Co-founded in 2020 by Dr. Ahmed Abdelkarim and Dr. Seb Leaper, the company is in talks with MENA partners to implement its sustainable solutions.