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This week on VC React we watch Arabic AI find late‑stage traction, see a Moroccan startup chase the “one‑app‑to‑rule‑them‑all” dream, get the inside scoop on Saudi’s first embedded‑insurance rails, and track a global talent tug‑of‑war that’s ripping startups out of their own cap tables.
We start in Riyadh, where 10‑year‑old Lucidya has reinvented itself yet again—this time as an enterprise AI‑agent suite—and lands a $30 million growth round led by Impact46 with Aramco’s Wa’ed and SparkLabs joining in. We unpack why an Arabic‑first stack finally matters, how a customer‑experience wedge beats pure‑play LLMs, and whether Saudi’s tender frenzy can pull a decade‑old SaaS shop into IPO range.
Next we head to Casablanca, where 18‑month‑old Ora Technologies raised $7.5 million Series A to build Morocco’s first native super‑app—combining P2P wallets, chat, food delivery, and same‑day retail in a single feed. We ask if one‑country focus can out‑execute Grab‑style sprawl, whether North Africa’s 70 %‑cash economy really wants Bundled Everything, and how startups there will fund growth rounds without local late‑stage capital.
Then it’s back to Riyadh for a closer look at Yasmina, a one‑API “insurance‑as‑a‑service” layer that just closed a $2 million seed from Wamda & Access Bridge. With a former SAMA regulator co‑founding, they promise 48‑hour partner onboarding and the Kingdom’s first e‑agent license. We dig into embedded cover for Si‑yara, HR platforms and POS networks, and test whether distribution beats underwriting in a region where insurance penetration still hovers below 2 %.
Finally, we zoom out to Silicon Valley, where Google poaches the CEO of Windsor AI in a $2.4 billion talent‑and‑IP license, Cognition AI scoops up the remaining 250 engineers, and Meta snaps up Egypt‑founded Play.ai, its fifth frontier‑model acqui‑hire this year. We map the new M&A math (buy the people, not the product), debate term‑sheet clauses that might chain founders to their own companies, and ask how MENA can keep its diaspora daring from disappearing into Big Tech.
Capital rotations, market‑making licenses, and a talent market that pays startup prices for résumés.
This week’s guests:
