⏱️ Around the Middle-East in 60 seconds

1. 🇪🇬 Egypt: Crafty Workshop has secured $400k seed funding from EdVentures. Launched in 2019 by Hadir Shalabi and Amjad Mostafa, Crafty provides online courses in creative fields like design and programming, addressing the need for skill development among young people. With the new funds, they aim to expand to the Gulf and introduce up to 500 new course topics in the next year.

2. 🇦🇪 UAE: Share the Love, founded in 2020 by Billy Blackford, has secured seed funding from angel investors. Starting as a greeting card marketplace, the eco-friendly e-commerce store now offers over 40,000 templates and in-house gift manufacturing. The funds will fuel team expansion, product development, and a new website launch.

3. 🇦🇪 UAE: Hub71 has enhanced its start-up incentive, offering up to Dh750,000 ($204,000) in equity-free incentives, a 50% rise. Revealed at Gitex Global, the program also grants Hub71 an ownership stake in chosen startups. The initiative supports the UAE's ambition of nurturing 20 unicorns by 2030. Joining startups benefit from expansive networks and a mentorship course.

4. 🇦🇪 UAE: Dubai's Olive Gaea just secured $1M from Cornerstone Ventures. Founded in 2021 by Vivek Tripathi, this climate-tech startup champions decarbonisation, riding the Net Zero wave. Their soon-to-launch SaaS platform, 'Zero by Olive Gaea', will tackle business challenges in carbon management within the MENA region. With fresh capital, expect expanded reach across the GCC, MENA, and India.

Introducing XPANCEO! The Dubai-based deep tech start-up is developing the next generation of computing via an invisible and weightless smart contact lens.

(Will that mean it doesn’t count as screen time? 👀)

Oh, and did we mention they just raised a $40 million seed-round?

• Launched in 2021, and founded by Roman Axelrod and Valentyn Volkov, up until now the start-up was bootstrapped.

💰 Investor low-down: The round was led by a single investor: Hong Kong-based Opportunity Ventures (Asia). ‍

📱 But what about my smartphone?

Whilst smartphones have proven revolutionary, they still suffer from limitations in form, screen space, and can hinder natural human interaction.

*shudders at screen-time report*

What if devices could adapt to us, not the other way around?

You: Impossible.

Xpanceo: But… what if I told you, they could.

👁 Everything everywhere all at once

XPANCEO is creating an ultra-thin smart contact lens that aims to overcome these limitations and consequently redefine how we interact with the real and digital worlds.

The goal? An integrated, infinite screen experience using advanced photonics, unifying all tech functions seamlessly into one's field of view.

By leveraging cutting-edge optical materials (think low-dimensional and van der Waals compounds) the experience is user-friendly for wearers, feeling just like natural vision.

• To date the company has engineered and successfully tested three separate prototypes to ensure functionalities such as night vision and zoom, real-time health monitoring, and the ability to see video and graphic content in AR.

🔮 The future

The capital injection will turbo-charge the production of a new prototype that merges several features into a singular device.

• XPANCEO expects to complete the first all-in-one prototype by 2026.

Here’s  Takadao! A unique Saudi fintech startup building community-owned financial services on the blockchain, with a twist - their products are Shariah-compliant, addressing the needs of the global Muslim community.

They just raised a $1.6 million pre-seed.

• Based in Singapore with their headquarters in Riyadh, the company was co-founded by Sharene Lee and Morrad Irsane.

💸 Investor low-down: Legendary Silicon Valley investor Tim Draper (Baidu, Skype, and Hotmail) led the pre-seed round.

• Other investors like BIM, Core Vision Ventures, and Prince Sultan bin Fahad bin Salman Al Saud are also all onboard.

💰 Minding money

The Muslim population is predicted to grow twice as fast as the non-Muslim population by 2030.

This young and rapidly growing population is searching for financial services that take their values into account.

Many also face unstable economies, weak currencies, limited traditional banking access, and distrust due to banks prioritising shareholder profits over consumer well-being.

🌐⛓️ All aboard the blockchain

Takadao's mission is to extend the reach of Islamic finance by providing Shariah-compliant loans and insurance through the blockchain.

They emphasise the community-owned nature of their services, where shareholders are the users themselves.

This approach ensures the primary focus on consumer well-being, and what about shareholder profits, you say?

They go back to end users!

And how? They leverage decentralised blockchain and crypto.

• The company’s primary product on offer at the moment is Takaturn, a traditional global savings system where a group contributes to a fund monthly and takes turns receiving the full amount. A security deposit ensures no one defaults.

🔮 The future

Takasure, an initiative that hopes to protect financial freedom by turning savings into insurance, is still in the works, with a release date of June 2024.

Takadao mixes finance, tech, and culture with a community of 10,000+ members that continues to grow by 5% weekly.

👋 Message from the team

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