AI and Cybersecurity Take the Lead in MEAPT VC Funding November 2025 as the Year Nears Its End

Value keeps climbing while participation keeps falling. As of November 2025, startups across the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan and Turkey (MEAPT) have raised US $14.01B YTD, up 58.3% YoY from 2024’s US $8.85B and the highest three-year tally; yet deal count dropped to 1,015—down 36.9% YoY and roughly half of 2023’s pace. The picture that emerges is one of concentration. Ten transactions account for roughly US $3.34B (≈24% of YTD value, as of Nov 2025), and several of those were structured or debt-linked—an increasingly common way for scale-ups to extend runway without heavy dilution.

November itself underscored that pattern without delivering a blockbuster. No November round cleared the US $160M floor required to enter this year’s YTD top 10, and the month’s top 10 summed to about US $628M—solid, but mid-tier by 2025 standards. We did see two mega-rounds (≥US $100M), led by Saudi Arabia’s erad (US $125M, debt) and Israel’s Wonderful (US $100M, Series A). The rest of the board clustered between US $30–$80M, dominated by AI and cybersecurity, with Israel taking 7 of November’s top 10—a reminder that, even in a risk-selective market, the region’s deepest technical benches continue to clear meaningful tickets.

Globally, the World Bank’s latest signals (Oct–Dec 2025) point to resilient-but-subdued growth and another leg down in commodity prices, a mix that keeps risk premia elevated—so capital favors fewer, larger, more structured rounds over first cheques.

Two investor takeaways follow. First, barbell dynamics persist: late-stage names with clear unit economics can still attract large checks (or structured capital), while seed and early Series A remain supply-constrained, limiting pipeline breadth into 2026. Second, debt is no longer an outlier; it is one of the year’s defining instruments across the biggest tickets, suggesting boards are trading some covenant friction for time-to-profitability.

The upshot: capital is available but choosy. Unless December brings an early-stage flurry, 2025 will likely close as MEAPT’s most capital-rich yet least deal-dense year, rewarding disciplined follow-on strategies and thoughtful use of structured finance over momentum chasing.

Let’s take a look at the top 10 funding rounds of November 2025 across MEAPT.

#1 - erad | FinTech | $125 Million Debt Financing

Founded by Faris Yaghmour, Salem Abu-Hammour, and Youssef Said in 2022, erad is a Riyadh-headquartered alternative financing platform for SMEs which services customers across retail, F&B, e-commerce, healthcare, and beyond, including well-recognized businesses such as Citron, Wixsana, and House of Pops. The company’s Shariah-compliant platform utilizes proprietary data modelling for risk assessment, enabling it to review applicants and provide financing approval in just 48 hours, one of the fastest in the region, according to the company. Since launch, erad has provided over US $50 million in funding to regional SMEs, addressing the GCC's estimated US $250 billion SME credit gap.

In November 2025, erad raised US $125 million in debt financing led by Jefferies Financial Group, bringing its cumulative funds raised to over US $176 million. The transaction marks Jefferies' first GCC asset-backed financing transaction and will support the firm's plans to grow their presence in the Kingdom. The deal is aimed at accelerating erad's embedded finance solutions across the GCC as the company expands into multiple sectors and products, including embedded finance products, enabling suppliers and business platforms to offer integrated financing at the point of sale. The model is already live with several strategic partners, including suppliers of healthcare and F&B products in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

#2 - Wonderful | Artificial Intelligence | $100 Million Series A

Founded earlier this year by Bar Winkler and Roey Lalazar, Wonderful is an enterprise AI platform that allows organizations to create, test, and deploy AI agents across voice, chat, and email. Designed for zero wait time, round-the-clock availability, and expert-level support in any language, Wonderful delivers seamless interactions, even in markets where localization and implementation can take years. While major players focus on English and Mandarin, Wonderful is targeting the rest of the world, bringing cultural fluency and native-language support to a US $200 billion opportunity underserved by US-centric solutions.

In November 2025, Wonderful secured a US $100 million series A round led by Index Ventures, bringing its cumulative funds raised to US $138 million. Just four months after emerging from stealth, Wonderful will use the new funds to launch in Germany, Austria, the Nordics, and Portugal in 2025, with plans to expand in the Asia-Pacific region in early 2026.

#3 - Guardio | Cybersecurity | $80 Million Series B

Founded in 2018 by CEO Amos Peled, Daniel Sirota, and Michael Vainshtein, Guardio develops protection engines for private users in an era of sophisticated attacks and AI. Cybersecurity investment has long prioritized protecting companies - not individuals - leaving consumers with outdated tools ill-equipped for today’s sophisticated, AI-driven scams. Serving over 500,000 paying users as of November 2025, Guardio's mission is to deliver enterprise-grade protection to everyone, redefining what safety looks like in an age where digital threats feel personal, human, and convincing.

In November 2025, Guardio secured a US $80 million series B round led by ION Crossover Partners, bringing its cumulative funds raised to US $127 million. This round comes on the heels of three straight years of over 100% year-on-year growth, with Guardio on track to cross US $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by early 2026, according to the company. The new funding will help the company boost its detection tools, build stronger layers of protection, and grow its brand and marketing efforts globally.

#4 - Sweet Security | Cybersecurity | $75 Million Series B

Launched by Dror Kashti, CEO, Eyal Fisher, CPO, and Orel Ben Ishay VP R&D in 2023, Sweet Security combines network security monitoring and defensive capabilities with an emphasis on automation and ease of deployment. It's designed to be a comprehensive solution that can be easily set up on small devices like a Raspberry Pi or other low-cost hardware, and aims to make advanced network security accessible to organizations of all sizes, especially those with limited resources. The company is currently introducing new AI security capabilities that secure models, agents, and the full AI lifecycle.

In November 2025, Sweet Security raised US $75 million series B led by Evolution Equity Partners, bringing its cumulative fundraising to US $120 million. The new funds will be used to accelerate Sweet Security's global expansion and product innovation to meet fast growing enterprise demand for real-time protection across the entire cloud, AI systems, and production environments.

#5 - Tenzai | Artificial Intelligence | $75 Million Seed

Founded by Pavel Gurvich and Ariel Zeitlin just six months ago, Tenzai is empowering organizations to realize the true potential of artificial intelligence through accessible, scalable, and responsible AI solutions. Built on frontier AI models from the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI, Tenzai’s agents find weaknesses in customers’ applications, identify problems, and offer solutions for human operators to then assess and decide if they want to execute on it. Gurvich says Tenzai is positioning itself as a challenger to major consulting firms like Deloitte and PwC, in helping clients like financial institutions to address application-level vulnerabilities.

In November 2025, Tenzai announced a US $75 million seed round led by Battery Ventures, Greylock, and Lux Capital. The company says it will use the new funds to expand its AI research and security teams, enhance its autonomous offensive capabilities, and strengthen its go-to-market presence across North America and Europe.

#6 - EasyCep | E-Commerce | $45 Million Unknown Series Round

Founded in 2018 by Mehmet Akif Özdemir and İsmail Dinçer, EasyCep is an online marketplace where consumers can buy and sell professionally refurbished smartphones, tablets, computers, and more. EasyCep’s next-generation franchise network, EasyCep Express, integrates secondhand phone dealers into its ecosystem, enabling them to offer certified refurbished products with flexible payment plans. The company says its model provides consumers with affordable, trusted technology while supporting small businesses. EasyCep has grown fifteenfold over the past three years, and now operates modern refurbishment facilities with a monthly processing capacity of up to 100,000 devices while running 25 certified renewal centers nationwide.

In November 2025, EasyCep secured US $45 million in a new investment round with participation from Oleka Capital, RePie Portföy and Ziraat Portföy, bringing its cumulative fundraising to nearly US $60 million. EasyCep will use the funds to accelerate its expansion in Turkey’s secondhand smartphone market and broaden its refurbishment operations to include tablets, computers, smart home devices and gaming consoles.

#7 - Chargeflow | Fintech | $35 Million Series A & Debt Financing

Founded by Ariel Chen and Avia Chen in 2020, Chargeflow provides an automated chargeback management platform that recovers and automates chargebacks to fight fraud in digital commerce. Chargeflow now supports more than 15,000 businesses, including Miro, Huel, Fanatics, HexClad, Sweetgreen, Crunchbase, WHOOP, and Elementor, and has helped recover over US $100 million in disputed revenue.

In November 2025, Chargeflow raised a total of US $35 million, split between US $10 million in debt financing and US $25 million in a series A round led by Viola Growth, bringing its total capital raised to nearly US $50 million. The new capital will fuel Chargeflow's global expansion, deepen its partnerships with enterprise merchants and payment platforms, and power the development of 'Chargeflow Prevent,' the first-ever friendly-fraud prevention solution.

#8 - Daylight Security | Cybersecurity | $33 Million Series A

Founded by Hagai Shapira and Eldad Rudich in 2024, Daylight Security enables organizations to build world-class, environment-specific security through its Agentic Security Services designed to adapt, respond, and stay ahead of evolving threats. Combining agentic intelligence with expert human insight, Daylight provides real-time threat awareness, operational context, and actionable control, giving businesses the clarity and confidence to navigate and secure their digital landscape. In the past year, dozens of enterprises across the US and Europe including The Motley Fool, Cresta, and McKinsey Investment Office have chosen Daylight to transform their security operations. According to the company, Daylight now boasts deployments completed in under an hour, up to 90% fewer false positives, and faster, deeper investigations that resolve threats, not just escalate them.

In November 2025, Daylight Security announced a US $33 million series A round led by Craft Ventures, bringing its cumulative funds raised to US $40 million. The investment will be used to fuel Daylight's US expansion, accelerate its product development, and support the launch of new AI-driven modules focused on identity threat response and cloud workload protection.

#9 - Clover Security | AI / DevOps | $30 Million Series A

Founded in 2023 by Alon Kollmann and Or Chen, Clover Security embeds AI agents into common developer tools like Jira, GitHub, and Slack to help teams spot security issues early and build safely from the start. Its AI mimics expert security thinking, anticipating vulnerabilities and applying security best practices during development. This reduces repetitive tasks for security teams and gives developers real-time guidance within their normal workflows. Clients include Udemy, Lemonade, Virgin Money, and fast-growing companies like Notion, Plaid, and Clari.

In November 2025, Clover Security announced a US $30 million series A round led by Notable Capital and Team8, bringing its cumulative funds raised to US $36 million. The company will use the new capital to accelerate marketing efforts and expand reach.

#10 - CratD2C | Blockchain | $30 Million Unknown Series Round

Founded by Dr. Arogundade Samsondeen in 2019, CratD2C is an innovative blockchain platform that merges Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) with a Layer-1 infrastructure to set a new benchmark for security, speed, and scalability. Its main focus is revolutionizing e-commerce by enabling direct, efficient connections between businesses and consumers. This is made possible through a transparent and cost-effective smart contract system built on its DPoS-based blockchain.

In November 2025, CratD2C completed US $30 million in venture financing from Nimbus Capital. The team will use this investment to strengthen CratD2C's global infrastructure, expand its diversified ecosystem, and accelerate the launch of flagship products in its network.