1. 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia: Noon, an edtech company, completed a $41M Series B funding round co-led by Wa'ed Ventures and Raed Ventures to expand its AI-learning in MENA and globally.

2. 🇦🇪 UAE: Abu Dhabi's Hub71 welcomed 23 startups from across the globe into its 13th cohort. They will join a tailored three-month program offering mentorship, resources, and up to $204,000 in benefits. Check them out here →

3. 🇲🇦 Morocco: ORA Technologies has secured $1M pre-seed funding, marking a rapid rise with 140,000 app downloads for its multi-service platform since launching only 9 weeks ago (!!!)

4. 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia: Aramco Ventures led a $10M Series A for Singapore’s REDEX, Asia’s top Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) provider. Founded in 2018, REDEX aims to drive global RECs adoption.

5. 🇦🇪 UAE: NOW Money, a fintech specialising in P2P remittances, has secured a funding round led by Dubai entrepreneurs Mark Nutter and Nicolas Andine. NOW Money plans to launch a banking subscription service tailored for migrant workers.

6. 🇪🇬 Egypt: Almouneer has secured $3.6M in Seed funding from Global Ventures, Proparco, and others. Specializing in digital chronic disease management, the company aims to enhance its DRU platform for diabetes and obesity care, eyeing expansion across MEA.

7. 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia: Nuzul, a Saudi proptech platform, has secured an undisclosed Pre-Seed investment led by Flat6Labs. Launched in 2022, Nuzul provides digital tools for realtors, including cloud-based electronic property offices and domain-specific property listings.

🦄 Ladies and gentlemen, here’s Tabby! The Saudi-based fintech specialising in 'buy now, pay later' (BNPL) services, has become MENA’s first fintech unicorn, hitting a $1.5 billion valuation after a $200 million Series D funding round.

• Co-founded by Hosam Arab and Daniil Barkalov in the UAE in 2019, an IPO on Tadawul is on the horizon.

💰 Investor lowdown: Wellington Management spearheaded the funding round, complemented by contributions from growth equity firm Bluepool Capital, alongside continued support from previous investors STV, Mubadala Investment Capital, PayPal Ventures, and Arbor Ventures.

• This is coming less than a year after Tabby’s $58 million Series C round led by Sequoia Capital India and STV.

💻 Solving spending woes: 

Okay, so first things first, let’s dive into how Tabby works:

1. 🛍️ Shop til you drop with one of Tabby’s 30,000 partner brands 

2. 💸 Pay 25% upfront at the checkout

3. 💳 And the rest in 3 more monthly payments without interest

Sounds great for the customer but how does Tabby make money in all of this?

• They turn a profit by charging retailers, not shoppers, for offering a better shopping experience.

With $6 billion in annual transaction volume, and over 10 million users in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Kuwait, suffice to say they’re onto something big.

📈 Turning a profit: 

Unlike BNPL providers in the US and Europe who often face losses (Klarna 👀), Tabby is actually profitable in the GCC.

Why? Fewer credit options makes BNPL not just convenient but essential.

• In Saudi Arabia, only 15% of people have credit cards, compared to 40% in the UAE and 10% across the GCC.

Another reason? Quick recognition of mismatched market conditions. 

Tabby evaluates markets based on e-commerce size, credit card penetration, and consumer purchasing power before entering.

• This explains its recent strategic exit from Egypt only 6 months after entering.

🐴 Not just a one-trick pony

And they’re not resting on their laurels:

• Tabby Cards are now used in over 4,000 UAE stores, making up 20% of Tabby's total transactions.

• Additionally, Tabby Shop has launched, aggregating 500,000+ products for easy shopping and deal discovery.

🚀 Flash forward 

Looking forward, Tabby plans to expand its market presence, offering new credit options and broadening its financial services to include things like payments and savings for enhanced customer financial well-being.

🕸️ Say hello to SpiderSilk, the Dubai-based cybersecurity start-up helping companies identify, manage and protect their attack surfaces with an AI-powered platform for intelligent threat detection.

And, they just secured $9 million in their latest funding round.

• Co-founded by Rami El Malak and Mossab Hussein in 2019, SpiderSilk has to date uncovered threats that would have impacted over 120 million people.

💰Investor low-down: The round was led by Wa’ed Ventures, the VC arm of Saudi Aramco, with existing investors STV and Global Ventures also joining in again.

• This round comes nearly two years after securing a $2.25 million Pre-Series A.

💦 Not another leak

No one wants their company’s sensitive data all over the web… but mistakes inevitably happen.

To err is human, after all.

But once that data is out there, you best believe there will be hackers lining up to capitalise on any underlying vulnerabilities, leaving public and private organisations open to cyber threats from all angles.

Couldn’t you just, I dunno, throw money at the problem?

You could, but you would need VERY deep pockets! 💸

• According to IBM's 2023 Security report, the Middle East ranks second only to the United States in the cost of data breaches, with the regional average reaching approximately $8 million per incident.

And just for good measure, did we mention that threat detection is typically a multi-solution, resource intensive debacle?

🔒 Not on our watch

Wow, sounds like there are a lot of companies that could do with having an automated, intelligent, cost-effective, easy to deploy threat detection system… 👀

SpiderSilk, would agree!

Let’s break down how they do it:

1. 🔍 The service offers a detailed scanning system that finds a company's possible security risks.

2. 🎯 It discovers unseen weak spots and performs mock cyberattacks to show where a company's defences might fail.

3. 🌐 Their ongoing internet scanning connects found vulnerabilities directly to the companies at risk, emphasising urgent security issues.

The result? Organisations are alert to and ready to proactively address potential security issues before they can be exploited.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

• Global conglomerates like Unisys would agree. They signed a 5-year agreement with SpiderSilk for advanced cyber defence services earlier this year.

🔮 Flash forward

The latest investment will drive the growth of SpiderSilk's cybersecurity technology offering in Saudi Arabia.

• The startup plans to relocate its HQ to Riyadh in 2024, and on Wednesday, indicated they had signed an agreement with Aramco to collaborate on several fronts.

👋 Message from the team

Thanks for reading! We’ll be attending NYUAD Slush'D this Saturday in Abu Dhabi, so if you’re going to be around please shoot us an email so that we can put a face to the email address!

We’ll see you all again next Tuesday. Have a question or any feedback? Just hit reply, or provide a rating below.

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