Happy Friday, friends 👋

The only thing better than one acquisition? Two. And both are especially interesting in terms of the GCC expansion footprint they unlock.

First up, Saudi’s Jahez is acquiring a 76.56% stake in Qatar’s Snoonu for $245 million, marking its official entry into the Qatari market and giving Snoonu a $320 million post-money valuation. Meanwhile, Egypt’s Nawy, fresh off a $52 million Series A, is making its second acquisition of 2025, having earlier picked up ROA (now Nawy Unlocked), it’s now buying Dubai-based SmartCrowd, a fractional real estate investment platform, to facilitate its UAE entry.

Elsewhere, everyone’s favourite proptech, Huspy, has secured a $59 million Series B to double down on Middle East operations and fuel its European expansion.

XPANCEO, meanwhile, has reportedly raised a $250 million Series A at a $1.35 billion valuation, per Bloomberg, to accelerate development of its smart contact lens technology. We've reached out to the team for more clarity. The science is fascinating, if not a little opaque, and we’ll be watching closely to see if it holds up to scrutiny ahead of clinical trials slated for late 2026.

And don’t miss our latest deep dive: we went all in on Flow, Adam Neumann’s new real estate venture that launched in Saudi Arabia this year. $293 million from 33 Saudi families, a full rollout in just 60 days, and a roadmap built around the Kingdom’s emerging build-to-rent opportunity. Is it just WeLive in a thobe, or something bigger? You can read the full article here.

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

This week’s round-up is a 5 min read:

XPANCEO (🇦🇪 UAE), a smart optics company developing extended reality contact lenses, has raised $250 million in Series A funding led by Opportunity Venture (Asia) Ltd. to advance its prototype roadmap and build a clinical trial-ready model by 2026, reportedly bringing its valuation to $1.35 billion.

Huspy (🇦🇪 UAE), a proptech platform for real estate agents and mortgage brokers, has raised $59 million in a Series B round led by Balderton Capital, with participation from Peak XV Partners, ExBorder Partners, Turmeric Capital, BY Venture Partners, DARA CAPITAL, and KE Partners, to expand in Spain and Saudi Arabia.

TruKKer (🇸🇦 KSA), a digital freight network connecting over 60,000 transporters with 1,200+ enterprise clients, has secured $15 million in private credit from Ruya Partners to support regional expansion, enhance its tech platform, and consolidate its freight-tech position across MENA and Central Asia.

BioSapien (🇦🇪 UAE), a healthtech company developing a 3D-printed drug delivery platform for localised cancer treatment, has extended its pre-Series A round to over $8 million with new backing from Globivest, joining Global Ventures, Golden Gate Ventures, and Dara Holdings, to scale R&D.

Rekaz (🇸🇦 KSA), a software platform for service-based businesses, has raised $5 million in Seed funding led by COTU Ventures, with participation from Impact46, Shorooq Partners, Numrah Capital, and regional angels, to expand across the GCC, enhance its AI tools, and grow its team.

icogz (🇦🇪 UAE), a business intelligence platform delivering data-driven insights for brands, has raised $1.4 million in pre-Seed funding from angel investors in the UAE and India to advance product development, scale its Aryabot AI engine, and grow its presence in MENA and Southeast Asia.

M&A

Saudi-based Jahez Group is acquiring a 76.56% stake in Snoonu, the leading e-commerce and delivery platform in Qatar, for $245 million in a mixed cash and share transaction. The agreement marks one of the region’s largest private startup M&A deals to date, valuing Snoonu at $320 million post-money and cementing its status as Qatar’s first tech startup to surpass a QAR 1 billion valuation.

Under the terms of the deal, Jahez will purchase 75% of Snoonu’s equity from existing shareholders for $225 million, paid partly in cash and partly in Jahez shares. It will also inject an additional $20 million into the business in exchange for newly issued shares representing a further 1.56% stake.

Following completion, Jahez will hold 76.56% of Snoonu’s share capital, while Snoonu’s founder, Hamad Al-Hajri, will retain the remaining 23.44%.

Founded in 2019, Snoonu has grown into a multi-vertical super-app offering food delivery, e-commerce, and logistics services. The company reported a gross merchandise value (GMV) of $376 million in 2024, more than triple its 2022 levels, and posted a net profit of $7.3 million and EBITDA of $14.6 million for the year.

🇦🇪 Stride Ventures has announced the first close of its ADGM Fund V, as it looks to double its GCC assets under management to over $500 million by 2026 and become the region’s largest provider of Sharia-compliant capital to high-growth startups. The fund will offer tailored debt solutions across fintech, healthtech, logistics, and climate tech, backed by a $110 million regional pipeline, with deal sizes averaging between $10 million and $15 million. The firm recently opened a second GCC office in Riyadh. Stride now operates across five hubs: India, UAE, KSA, the UK, and Singapore.

🇦🇪 BlueFive Capital has closed its seed round with participation from 25 founding shareholders, including GCC royals, family offices, and global financial leaders, bringing its valuation to $120 million and total AUM to $650 million. The firm also announced the close of its $2 billion BlueFive Reef Private Equity Fund I, focused on majority and minority investments in high-growth Gulf companies across healthcare, tech, hospitality, aviation, and industry, with a mandate to back regional champions with global ambitions.

🇸🇦 Saudi’s Tarmeez Capital, a sukuk fintech streamlining Sharia-compliant debt issuance, has raised a strategic round led by Tali Ventures, the corporate VC arm of stc group. Founded in 2022 by Nasser Alsaadoun, the platform enables sukuk issuance at 7x the speed of traditional methods and supports over 180,000 users. The new backing will help scale its platform, expand retail access, and support Saudi’s Vision 2030 financial inclusion goals.

🇬🇧 LemFi, a global payments startup headquartered in London, has launched its international money-transfer services in Egypt, targeting the country’s large and growing diaspora. Backed by US $86 million in funding and operating across the US, UK, Canada and Europe, LemFi aims to offer low-cost, reliable remittance solutions across North Africa, where it already serves the Moroccan and Tunisian corridors. Egypt’s corridor is huge: the country received a record US $29.6 billion in remittances in 2024, more than 6 % of GDP, thanks to an estimated 11 million Egyptians living abroad.

🇪🇬 Cairo-based fintech Valu has received initial approval from the Central Bank of Jordan to launch its Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) platform in the country, marking its first international expansion and a key step in its regional growth strategy. The move follows Valu’s recent listing on the Egyptian Exchange and Amazon’s strategic investment, which boosted its market cap to around $370 million. While no official launch date has been disclosed, the company has already appointed local leadership and signed early merchant partnerships.

🇪🇬 Nawy, the Cairo-based proptech backed by e& Capital, has acquired a majority stake in Dubai’s SmartCrowd. The deal follows Nawy’s $52 million Series A earlier this year—part of a $75 million round to scale its real estate platform across search, financing, brokerage, and fractional ownership.

Founded in 2018, SmartCrowd was the first MENA platform licensed for fractional property investment. It has raised around $3.6 million in funding, enabling users to invest in Dubai real estate from $150, with over $110 million in transactions and $40 million in returns to date. The acquisition gives Nawy access to a global user base, DFSA regulatory infrastructure, and proven operational expertise in fractional portfolios.

🧠 ZeroEntropy, a San Francisco-based AI infra startup co-founded by Moroccan engineer and CEO Ghita Houir Alami and CTO Nicolas Pipitone, has raised $4.2 million in seed funding to build developer-first search infrastructure for AI agents. The round was led by Initialized Capital, with backing from Y Combinator, Transpose Platform, 22 Ventures, a16z Scout, and angels from OpenAI and Hugging Face. Its proprietary re-ranker, ze-rank-1, powers retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems already in use by 10+ startups across healthcare, legal, and sales verticals.

🇶🇦 Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has joined a $250 million round in Kardium, a Canada-based medical device company developing the Globe System for treating atrial fibrillation. Other backers include Janus Henderson Investors, MM Capital, Piper Heartland Healthcare Capital, Eventide Asset Management, T. Rowe Price, and Durable Capital. The funding will support regulatory approvals, manufacturing scale-up, and the commercial launch of the Globe System, which achieved a 78% success rate in maintaining normal heart rhythm after one year in pivotal trials.

🚀 Oman Space Accelerator Program (OSAP) is now accepting applications from Omani-led startups and academic teams working on space technologies. The 15-week hybrid program includes expert-led workshops, mentorship, and investor access.
Location: Muscat + online | Apply by: July 30, 2025

🌇 Hub71 Cohort 18 is calling Seed to Series A startups ready to scale from Abu Dhabi. Backed by Mubadala, ADDED, and ADGM, the program offers funding access, commercial deals, and global growth support.
Location: Abu Dhabi | Apply by: August 1, 2025

🎓 Founder University MENA, powered by LAUNCH and Sanabil, is a 12-week pre-accelerator for early-stage founders across MENA. Includes live workshops, startup pod reviews, pitch prep, and up to $125K investment for standout teams.
Operations begin: November 2025 | Rolling applications

This episode is brought to you by OCTA - AR Automation – the AI-powered accounts receivable platform trusted by 100+ companies like Careem, Lean Technologies, and ZenHR to automate collections, resolve disputes, and unlock financing with zero hassle.

👉 Visit www.weareocta.com/fwdstart to get your first 6 months free

🎧 This week on VC React, we unpack MENA’s fastest unicorn, tease out why logistics is having a fintech moment, and dissect the AI talent wars shaking up global research labs.