Weekly Market Highlight

Written By Aljawhara Alotaibi

March 21st 2026

  • RemotePass secures $17.4 million Series B to accelerate global expansion.

  • Arib targets Saudi digital lending boom with $23.5M funding round.

  • Mal Secures UAE Central Bank Approval to Launch AI-Native Islamic Digital Bank.

  • Manara Ventures has launched a $70.5 million Sharia-compliant scale-up fund to back Jordanian technology and innovation-driven startups.

  • ARRW has secured a $4 million investment from Tasheed Egypt.

  • GrowthLabs has acquired Startup Gate for $657,000 to build a unified digital infrastructure for MENA’s innovation and startup support.

  • Magrabi Retail plans to acquire a 51% stake in Egypt’s Baraka Optics Group, pending regulatory approvals.

  • ADGM reported a 57% increase in assets under management in Q1 2026, with new asset managers representing over US$4.4 trillion in global AUM.

  • EYST Technology has secured a six-figure investment from 216 Capital to expand its insurtech SaaS platform.

  • eVoost AI has raised $2.2 million (€2 million) in a round led by First Drop VC with participation from Qora71 (Hub71) to expand globally.

  • B&Y Venture Partners has launched the Lebanese Angel Investor Network (LAIN), a curated group targeting Lebanese and diaspora-founded startups.

  • GymNation secured a USD 100 million private credit facility from HPS Investment Partners to accelerate expansion across the GCC and Asia.

  • PlayReplay raised USD 12M to accelerate expansion across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Egypt, supported by a regional partnership with Söderhub.

  • Fawry is negotiating new acquisition deals worth approximately USD 2.4M to enhance its technology stack and deepen integration across its payments ecosystem.

  • Lianlian DigiTech secured a DFSA payment services license to expand regulated cross-border payment and settlement from a planned regional HQ in DIFC.

  • Deem Finance and Yusr partnered to launch embedded financial services in the UAE, starting with BNPL for the automotive sector.

  • Visa launched the Visa Agentic Ready programme across CEMEA to let issuers test AI agent–initiated transactions in a controlled environment.

  • Cerebras Systems, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AI chipmaker, raised $5.6 billion in its IPO.

  • Recursive Superintelligence, a U.K.-based neolab founded by former Google engineers at DeepMind and OpenAI, confirmed that it raised $650m at a $4.65b post-money valuation. GV and Greycroft led, joined by Nvidia and AMD.

Aljawhara Alotaibi
Next

Weekly Market Watch