MENA Tech Scaleup Yearly Funding Activity (2016 to 2022)

The growth of funding in the region has exceeded US$4 billion in both 2021 and 2022 and the number of mega-rounds of US$300 million or more has seen an increasing trend with three seen in 2021 and six in 2022, including two scaleups listing on stock exchanges. 

Through the years, there have been large funding rounds, with Careem being one of the first ones to pave the way, having raised US$ 500 million through December 2016 and first half of 2017. The marquee fundraising was from Noon in 2017, the Saudi Arabia and UAE based e-commerce platform. More recently, Kitopi, the foodtech startup, has been aggressively fundraising, reeling in large funding in both 2021 and 2022. 

In 2022, there was a significant shift in the number of funding rounds, where scaleups raised funding, and a trend towards larger cheque sizes and funding bracket gained momentum. In the US$100 million to US$1 billion range, funding rounds increased by 100% between 2021 and 2022. Other funding ranges also saw increases between 20% to 87%.