H1 2025 VC Funding Type Breakdown in MEAPT by Funding Stage

MEAPT H1 2025: A Market Defined by a Handful of Giants

Startups across the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan and Turkey (excluding Israel) raised US $4.25 billion in the first half of 2025, 15 per cent more than the same period last year. Only 408 transactions were recorded, versus 757 a year earlier, confirming that investors are writing fewer cheques but at larger average sizes. The total figure masks two important dynamics: a concentration of capital in a handful of large debt deals, and a widening gap between early- and late-stage equity activity.

Debt Financing Is Large but Highly Concentrated

Debt headlines are eye-catching: US $2.60 billion deployed, more than quadruple the H1 2024 tally. But the reality is that 74 % of that capital sits in two deals:

• Dream Games: US $1.25 billion (part of a US $2.5 billion hybrid package)
• Lendo: US $690 million

Strip those out and venture-debt falls to US $663 million across 38 deals—still healthy, but hardly a systemic tilt toward leverage. Average ticket size for the remaining debt deals is a modest US $17 million, suggesting routine working-capital lines rather than transformative war-chests.

Take-away: credit is available, but true mega-debt remains rare; most founders still secure relatively small facilities.

Early-Stage Equity Contracts in Both Value and Volume

Funding for Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A rounds totalled about US $715 million across 267 transactions. That is a 14 per cent decline in capital and a 54 per cent decline in deal count compared with H1 2024. Investors are still supporting promising young companies, but they are imposing stricter milestones and funnelling roughly the same dollar pool into a much smaller group of startups. The practical result is that founders face longer diligence cycles and an expectation of stronger commercial traction before capital is committed.

Late-Stage Equity Grows After Adjusting for a 2024 Outlier

Series B and later rounds (including corporate and “Series Unknown” equity deals) attracted US $846 million through 85 transactions. Because H1 2024 was inflated by a one-off US $1.5 billion corporate cheque for G42 funded by Microsoft, comparisons need an adjusted baseline. Removing that outlier, late-stage equity dollars increased by 59 per cent year-on-year even as the number of rounds fell 27 per cent. Investors appear willing to deploy larger sums into companies with proven product-market fit, favouring extension rounds and structured equity that protect valuations in an environment of elevated interest rates.

Overall Market Composition

Combining the pieces, the region now allocates 46 per cent of total capital to equity (early and late stages combined) and 54 per cent to debt. Inside the equity slice, late-stage deals account for 54 per cent of dollars but only 24 per cent of transactions, while early-stage deals account for 46 per cent of dollars and 76 per cent of transactions. The concentration is even sharper when the two mega-debt deals are excluded.

Outlook

If global interest-rate cuts materialise in the second half of the year, late-stage equity could gain additional momentum, and debt may normalise toward smaller average ticket sizes. The more pressing question is whether today’s thin early-stage pipeline will reduce the pool of Series B candidates by 2027. For now, founders at the seed level should expect a continued emphasis on capital efficiency, and growth-stage companies should anticipate more blended rounds that combine equity with modest leverage. Investors, meanwhile, need to manage a portfolio that is increasingly skewed toward a small number of high-exposure positions.