The week saw a surge in early-stage startup funding especially in the B2B technology sector in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The funding rounds of pre-seed and seed investments were seen across Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Tunisia. This shows an increasing investor appetite in the MENA region.
The week marked the first investment by the German venture fund FoodLabs in the MENA region. The VC fund invested an undisclosed amount of funding. Founded in 2022 by Rabah Habiss and Abdulaziz Al-Saud, Barakah is an online marketplace that aims to reduce food waste by connecting food retailers and consumers to sell surplus products and discounted meals.
Barakah helps businesses minimise waste and generate new revenue opportunities but also provides consumers access to affordable and sustainable food options. Barakah had raised a $1.5 million seed funding led by Hambro Perks Oryx Fund in September last year.
Barakah since its inception has sold over 400,000 meals that would have otherwise been wasted. It already has over 800 merchants like Dunkin Donuts and Tim Hortons and other major local retailers as its partners.
This week, the Bahrain-based fintech firm Receiptable bridges the data gap between banks and retailers through digital receipts also raised funding from HP Spring Studios. This is the first institutional investor in the startup.
The funding by Receiptable will be used to build its platform, recruit talent, and also launch with its first partner bank in Bahrain.
Zainab Khamis, the Head of HP Spring Studios, Bahrain, said in a note that the investment in Receiptable is exciting not only because of the startup’s innovative approach in bridging the gap between banks and retailers but also the fact that it aligns with the vision to add substantial value to Bahrain’s fintech ecosystem.
Khamis added that the platform has the potential to unlock valuable data and pave the way for enhanced service personalisation. HP Spring Studios is a venture fund backed by Al Waha Fund of Funds and Hambro Peaks.
Tunisia wasn’t far behind, with its artificial intelligence startup ClusterLab raising $600,000 in pre-seed funding.
Early backers of InstaDeep, Karim Beguir, and regional angel investors led the round.
The funding will aid ClusterLab’s research and development efforts, and also push towards a focus on advancing their next-generational large language model (LLMs). The startup stated these advanced LLMs will further enhance the company’s NLP capabilities. The team aims to refine the user experience with their products like Elm and Reedz.
Haithem Kchau, Co-founder and CEO, ClusterLab said, the team’s expertise in technology goes beyond the current wave of large language models. Kchau added they have been pioneers in utilising NLP to revolutionise content summarisation before it became mainstream.
The biomedical technology startup InCurA which focusses on bleeding control solutions raised a pre-seed funding round led by a consortium of regional investors like KAUST Innovation ventures and Tiye Angels. The Egyptian startup was founded in 2021 by Moussa Salem and Wessam Sarhan.
Another Egyptian startup that bagged a six-figure bridge round was Pharmacy Mart. The round led by Acasia Ventures, makes the total funding raised by the healthtech startup at $2 million.
The startup is a B2B digital marketplace that connects medical suppliers and pharmacies, and enables easy access to various medicines, products, and even cosmetics. The startup currently stated it covers over 20 per cent of the Egypt’s market with over 200 suppliers.
