Seed

Series A

PE Round

Series B

Series D

Asia (ex. GCC & Levant)

Rest of World

Muscat

Ismail Al Harthi

Hisham Al Hinai

Anurag Agarwal

If you're ready to take your business to the next level with otf Jasoor Ventures, we want to hear your pitch.

Investment in Startup

otf Jasoor Ventures

Fintech

otf Jasoor Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund focusing on technology and tech-enabled startups across the MENA region.

Riyadh

Pre-IPO

TruKKer

Logistics

Freight Service

Supply Chain Management

Transportation

TruKKer is a technology-enabled truck aggregator that operates multiple truck types for multiple end markets.

Dubai

Swvl

Internet

Swvl is a tech-enabled mobility platform that provides safe, reliable, and convenient mass transit solutions in 115 cities worldwide, including Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Karachi

Dastgyr Technologies

E-Commerce

Dastgyr is a B2B e-commerce marketplace that uses technology to connect informal retailers with manufacturers and wholesalers.

Abu Dhabi

NymCard

Banking

Ziina

Finance

Financial Services

Insurance

Ziina is the UAE's first peer-to-peer payment app, allowing you to send and receive payments with just a phone number —no IBAN or swift code required. Accept cashless payments anywhere with Apple Pay, Google Pay, or card.

EON Aligner

Healthcare

ELEVATUS

AI/IoT

Elevatus is a leading tech company that offers an award-winning hiring platform and futuristic video interviewing software

BARQ

Logistics & Storage

Utilizes its state-of-the-art delivery technologies to deliver orders as fast as 15 minutes up to same-day delivery service.

Cartlow

Sustainable

UAE-based ‘re-commerce’ solutions provider with a focus on transforming the pre-owned industry sector and eliminating unsustainable practice

eMushrif

Information Technology

Digital & ICT

eMushrif is bringing IoT technology to school buses enabling automatic attendance marking, visual child check system and detection system to ensure no child left on the school bus. The system also provides school admins and parents with mobile apps to track buses and kids along with important notifications.

Oman-based eMushrif has secured $2.3 million in a Series A funding round, led by IDO Investments, with participation from Phaze Ventures, Oman Technology Fund, Jasoor Ventures, Dtec Ventures, Myrad Holding, and other angel investors.

Founded in 2016 by Adnan Al Shuaili, Awadh Al Shukaili, and Issa Al Shuaili, eMushrif started off as a transport startup. Shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic started, the company has leveraged its internet of things (IoT) technology to pivot into other sectors, including school and corporate transport. The startup deploys IoT devices on buses that support automatic attendance marking of students.

It has also provided the government of Oman with an IoT-based contact tracing application utilising AI and crowd GPS technologies. Additionally, it operates an onboarding process at all borders providing IoT wearables to all travelers to Oman.

&ldquo;We&rsquo;re excited to receive such tremendous support from our investors, who are aligned with our vision for expansion. With our current fundraise, we can continue to serve thousands of parents and save lives on school buses and regain parents&rsquo; trust in school transportation,&rdquo; said Adnan Al Shuaili, co-founder and CEO.

&ldquo;We are also revolutionising commuting services in other verticals such as oil and gas by providing intelligent commuting management system and ensuring the safety of the community by implementing covid-19 quarantine compliance,&rdquo; he added.

eMushrif operates in Oman and Kuwait and has completed three acquisition deals to grow its team and expand to other markets.

&ldquo;At IDO Investments, we are committed to supporting growth stage, innovative startups in Oman that have the capability and scalable potential to expand beyond Oman&rsquo;s borders by offering capital and a platform to expand globally. These startups typically have a product or service that is unique not only to Oman but to the world,&rdquo; said Mazin Al Naamani, portfolio impact lead at IDO Investments.

&quot;IDO&rsquo;s investment will be a catalyst in boosting growth and expansion for eMushrif. This capital injection will help in enriching existing jobs as well as providing new skilled job opportunities for Omanis,&rdquo; he added.

The company will use the newly-raised funds to expand into other markets, develop its product offering, introduce more technologies,&nbsp; and scale mass production and supply chain for the IoT devices developed by its research and development team.

eMushrif raises $2.3 million in Series A

TruKKer, a Dubai-based truck aggregator that claims to be the first and largest tech enabled trucking network in the Middle East has raised $2.7 million in a pre-Series A round, the startup announced today. The round was closed during the summer earlier this year and was led by Oman&rsquo;s OTF Jasoor Ventures, and joined by Abu-Dhabi based Shorooq Investments. Previous investors including Riyad Taqnia Fund, 500 Startups, Raed VC and Arzan VC also participated in the investment.

The startup had raised $1.4 million in seed funding only nine months ago, this round takes it total funding to $4.1 million. They plan to use the investment to further strengthen its operations in the region, product development and expansion of its team.

The funds will be used to strengthen operations in the region , product development and further adding to an ace team.

Founded by Gaurav Biswas and Pradeep Mallavarapu ,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.trukker.ae/" target="_blank">TruKKer</a>&nbsp;had started its operations from UAE in late 2016 but has since expanded all over GCC and Jordan. They provide different types of services to both individuals and companies, helping them move their homes, commercial spaces, offices, and large items from one place to another. TruKKer also allows users to rent the trucks by day or trip. But thier most interesting offering perhaps is the cross-border transportation that could be used to transport goods between countries in its network.

Apart from online booking and standard rates, customers also have an option of real-time tracking of the shipment through TruKKer&rsquo;s platform.

Gaurav Biswas, TruKKer&rsquo;s co-founder and CEO commenting on the occasion, said, &ldquo;We are excited to welcome our friends from OTF and Shorooq to join our exciting venture and grateful to the ongoing faith by existing investors. TruKKer will be using the funds to create solid physical infrastructure on our most common routes that facilitate reliable and efficient cargo movements, benefiting our clients and drivers.&rdquo;

&ldquo;Our initiatives and business strategies are built around creating fundamental value to the ecosystem by use of advanced technology and investing in tech implementation at all levels,&rdquo; he added.

Pradeep Mallavarapu , TruKKer&rsquo;s co-founder and CTO noted, &ldquo;It is important to have technology penetration at the lowest levels to address chronic industry challenges of empty returns, documentation issues, multiparty coordination, real time tracking and multi system integration. We are generating a lot of data that will support our algorithms for predictive demand and supply planning. This will further improve asset utilizations and efficiencies.&rdquo;

Ismail Al Harthy, Managing Director at OTF Jasoor Ventures that led the round, said, &ldquo;We believe TruKKer would play a vital role towards organizing the region&rsquo;s fragmented trucking industry. Now is the right time for technology to transform the traditional trucking industry which relies solely on brokers connecting truckers to vendors.&rdquo;

Dubai-based truck aggregator TruKKer raises $2.7 million in pre-Series A funding

Cairo-based transportation startup Swvl has raised $42 million in fresh funds (Series B-2), the startup announced in a statement to&nbsp;MENAbytes. The round was co-led by Swedish VC Vostok Ventures and Dubai-based BECO Capital, with China&rsquo;s MSA, US-based Endeavor Catalyst, Oman&rsquo;s OTF Jasoor Ventures, Egypt&rsquo;s Sawari Ventures, Kuwait&rsquo;s Arzan VC, Dubai-based Blustone, San Francisco-based Autotech, and Property Finder&rsquo;s CEO Michael Lahyani joining in. The investment comes almost seven months after Swvl announced its tens of millions of dollar of Series B at a valuation close to $100 million.

Started just two years ago, Swvl has now raised close to $80 million so far which makes it one of the best-funded startups of the region.

Founded in early 2017 by Mostafa Kandil, Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh, Swvl is currently available in Cairo, Alexandria, and Nairobi. The startup connects commuters with private buses, allowing them to reserve&nbsp;seats&nbsp;on these buses and pay the fare through company&rsquo;s mobile app. The buses available on Swvl operate on fixed routes (or lines). Swvl does not own the buses or employs the drivers&nbsp;but has signed different partnerships to help drivers and operators with financing of the vehicles. The company has recently also partnered with Ford to have its operators use Ford Transit minibus as preferred vehicle of choice.

Mostafa Kandil, the co-founder and CEO, speaking to Bloomberg, said that they plan to be in at least two to three more African cities by the end of this year. The startup earlier this month had told MENAbytes that they&rsquo;re planning to launch in Lagos within the next few weeks.

Swvl was one of the first startups in the region to introduce app-based mass-transportation but now it faces competition from Uber &amp; Careem; both of which launched a similar service in Cairo last year. Careem, which is being acquired by Uber, has since expanded Careem Bus to Alexandria and Saudi as well.

Cairo-based Swvl raises $42 million in the largest-ever funding round for an Egyptian startup

Dubai-based recommerce platform Cartlow has raised $2 million in a Pre-Series A round, it announced today. The investment came from Arzan VC, Vision Ventures, and some other investors.

Founded by Mohammed Sleiman and launched in 2019,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cartlow.com/" target="_blank">Cartlow</a>&nbsp;sells pre-owned, refurbished, open-box, and clearance products across different categories including mobile phones, laptops, watches, and TVs, on its online platform in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Cartlow procures the products that are slow-moving, returned, pre-owned, or open-box from different partners in bulk at low-cost and sells them on its website and mobile app at bargain prices after their grading, testing, certification, and restoration (to what it says is original condition). Most of the products it sells come with a warranty 3 to 12-month warranty (from Cartlow itself).

The partners it works with normally discard these products. By working with an entity like Cartlow, they&rsquo;re not only helping in eliminating unsustainable practices but also making money in the process.

The products listed on the platform are clearly labeled with grades for the users to easily browse through them and know the condition without even having to see the details on the product page. According to the information available on its website, Cartlow startup ships products all over the United Arab Emirates and Saudi in 1 to 3 days for a fixed fee.

Cartlow today has also announced that it is launching a suite of recommerce services for retailers, brands, and distributors which will be offered by its sister company Vascart. The B2B services that it is starting with include buyback solutions, liquidation solutions, warranty repairs, extended warranty program, refurbishing, and quality control.

In a statement, the startup said that normally in the retail world, a product&rsquo;s lifecycle ends when it is purchased which is actually not the case, &ldquo;Customer returns, end-of-life, and/or overstock products, which did not sell due to seasonality or underperformance, are inevitably discarded. This is where Vascart&rsquo;s concept will utilize the &lsquo;reverse logistics&rsquo; mechanism,&rdquo; noted the statement.

Mohammed Sleiman, the founder &amp; CEO of Cartlow in a statement, said, &ldquo;We are still in the early stages of learning how to bring new value to our customers by introducing re-commerce to the region. Our goal remains in continuing to solidify and extend our brand and customer base, since we first successfully launched Cartlow and now we have decided to create more opportunities by launching Vascart for retailers and distributors to benefit from, thereby enhancing their conversion rate and longtime value.&rdquo;

&ldquo;We are determined to restructure the pre-owned, after-sales, and liquidation market in this region under the re-commence ecosystem and we will continue to do so by doing our best, to facilitate both consumers and retailers with endless solutions,&rdquo; he added.

Dubai’s Cartlow raises $2 million to sell second-hand and refurbished products at bargain prices

<ul>
	<li>Saudi Arabia-based delivery as a service (DaaS) startup BARQ has raised $4 million in a Seed funding round, led by OTF Jasoor Ventures and Hambro Perks Oryx Fund with participation from Sultan Holding, Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC), as well as family offices and angel investors.</li>
	<li>Founded in 2020 by Abdullah AlShalhoub and Ahmad Habbal, BARQ offers last-mile delivery services for merchants, allowing them to offer quick delivery times.&nbsp;</li>
	<li>The latest funding will be used to expand its presence in Saudi Arabia and increase its product offerings.</li>
</ul>

Press release:

Saudi-based Delivery as a Service (DaaS) startup BARQ has successfully raised $4 million in its latest funding round. The Seed round was led by OTF Jasoor Ventures and Hambro Perks Oryx Fund with participation from Sultan Holding, Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC), as well as strategic family offices and angel investors.

Founded in 2020, BARQ enables bullet delivery for any business. From e-commerce to food, e-groceries, and various sectors, BARQ utilises its state-of-the-art delivery technologies to deliver orders as fast as 15 minutes up to same-day delivery service. With the acceleration of digital transformation, the transition of businesses from retail to online, and increased demand from consumers for a better and faster delivery service, BARQ converts retail outlets to micro-fulfilment centres/dispatching hubs making delivery faster and easier. Once a customer places an order through the business platform, the order gets fulfilled by the closest retail outlet and delivered to the customer once ready for pick up known as Bullet Delivery.

BARQ serves warehouses and fulfilment centres with several delivery options, 4hrs up to the same day or next day delivery window, depending on the business need. While restaurants and food aggregators enjoy 30-45 minute delivery service, paying only a delivery fee. Co-founder and CEO Abdullah AlShalhoub commented, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re on a mission to transform and automate overall business and consumer experience from order creation to delivery. We&rsquo;ve identified a lot of inefficiencies across our served sectors and started with the toughest &ndash; Last mile&rdquo;. Starting their careers as Strategy Consultants, Abdullah and Ahmad (Cofounders of BARQ), worked together at PwC and have decided to pursue the entrepreneurial path together. Co-founder/COO Ahmad Habbal commented, &ldquo;Last mile has been a never-ending challenge for businesses. With our multi-vertical and flexible supply model, we&rsquo;ve been able to increase efficiencies, ensure sustainability, and complement rather than compete with other players.&rdquo;&nbsp;

The latest fund will be used to expand the company&rsquo;s geographic footprint Kingdom-wide and increase product offering to provide a wider range of values to its customers across various sectors. &ldquo;We pride ourselves as strategic partners for businesses and not service providers. We rely on data to identify market trends and develop solutions to cater to their needs,&rdquo; CBDO Mohammad AlMarwani continues. The BARQ team is providing an exciting opportunity for businesses across the Kingdom to explore fast delivery services that elevates their sales and turnover rates. In light of this recent investment, CTO Djakhongir Makhkamov concluded, &ldquo;Technology is the heart of our startup; Our location-driven solutions are built using machine learning, route optimisation, process automation, and chatbots help optimise the delivery process and cater to their fast-growing business needs.&rdquo;&nbsp;

BARQ raises $4 million Seed round

<ul>
	<li>Jordan-based dental tech company focused on clear aligner solutions Eon Dental, has raised a $26 million Series B round, led by MedTech Fund and Arab Palestinian Investment Company, otf Jasoor Ventures,Endeavor Catalyst, Spartech Ventures, and Bank al Etihad, with participation from existing investors Hummingbird Ventures, and Silicon Badia.</li>
	<li>It plans to use the funds to advance its manufacturing automation and clinical services capabilities, invest in enterprise and clinical software solutions, and strengthen its commercialisation and distribution.</li>
	<li>Eon Dental was founded in 2011 by&nbsp;Qais Sabri and Yousef Nassar.</li>
</ul>

Press release&nbsp;

Eon Dental, a leading dental technology company that is focused on high-quality clear aligner solutions, today announced that it has completed a $26million Series B financing with a premier group of investors, led by a large international MedTech fund together with Arab Palestinian Investment Company, otf Jasoor Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, Spartech Ventures, and Bank al Etihad. They were joined by existing investors Hummingbird Ventures, and Silicon Badia in the financing. Funding will be used to power Eon&rsquo;s next chapter - further advancing its manufacturing automation and clinical services capabilities, investing and innovating in its enterprise and clinical software solutions,and strengthening its commercialization and distribution.

Founded in 2011, Eon Dental is a full-service clear aligner company with a worldwide distribution network and reputation for exceptional clear aligner products. Eon combines high-quality manufacturing services with a comprehensive, clinician-centric software solution, enabling their customers to offer high-quality clear aligners, a great user experience,and fast turnaround times - all under the customer&rsquo;s own brand.

As a leading clear aligner provider to dentists and orthodontists in the MENA region, Eon has also established a foothold in the clear aligner market under the Eon Aligner brand. This clinical insight and technological advancement is paving the way for one of the best white-label solutions for customers around the globe.&ldquo;Since founding the company, we have been mission-driven to provide quality orthodontic solutions to our customers so that everyone has access to a beautiful smile,&rdquo; said Qais Sabri, Co-Founder and CEO, Eon Dental. &ldquo;We are excited to partner with this well-regarded group of investors and we appreciate their support in advancing our mission to impact the lives of as many people as possible.&rdquo; The OEM market is extremely underserved and Eon Dental has developed a flexible enterprise solution that offers compelling value,&rdquo; said Eon&rsquo;s lead investor. &ldquo;Eon&rsquo;s world-class innovations in rapid manufacturing of clear aligners and integrated clinical care solutions deliver a better experience for customers at a lower total cost. We&rsquo;re excited to support this industry-leading team through the next phase of growth.&rdquo;

The Kingdom of Jordan is committed to supporting digital entrepreneurship, as it is a key driver for employment and economic growth. &ldquo;It is exciting to see a Jordanian startup mature an organization and make the transition to become a global player,&rdquo; said Ahmad Hanandeh, Jordanian Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship. &ldquo;Eon receiving regional and international investor recognition reaffirms what Jordan has to offer in terms of talent, capabilities and entrepreneurial spirit.&rdquo;

Jordan's Eon Dental raises $26 million in Series B

Dastgyr, a B2B marketplace out of Karachi that connects suppliers to mom-and-pop retailers, on Tuesday announced that it has raised $37 million in Series A funding &mdash; the first round of financing for a new business after seed capital &mdash; for the biggest investment yet in Pakistan at this stage.

According to a press release, the round was led by VEON Venture &mdash; the corporate venture arm of Jazz Pakistan&rsquo;s parent company &mdash; with a contribution of $15m. Other participants in the round were Zinal Growth, DEG, Khwarizmi Ventures, OTF Jasoor Ventures, Cedar Mundi, Reflect Ventures, Century Oak Capital, Hi2 Global, GoingVC, Astir Ventures, K3 Diversity Ventures, and Chandaria Capital, along with the founders of Property Finder, Ayoconnect, Quiqup, and senior management from DoorDash.

The new financing comes less than a year after Dastgyr announced its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1637048">$3.5m seed round</a>, the press release said.

It claimed that Dastgyr has grown 300 per cent since then, adding over 70,000 retailers across five markets and venturing into new categories such as construction and building materials.

&quot;We&rsquo;re thrilled to achieve this milestone in the current global economic environment. While we are proud of our growth, we are even prouder of achieving this growth with high capital efficiency. In today&rsquo;s world, the focus is shifting toward unit economics, burn multiples, and sustainability, but these have been our core focus areas from day one,&quot; the press release quoted Dastgyr co-founder Zohaib Ali as saying.

He said that financial inclusion, which is central to the startup&rsquo;s mission, would uplift and enable Pakistan&rsquo;s small and medium-sized retail entrepreneurs to potentially unlock up to an additional $10 billion for the GDP.

The press release said that VEON joins Dastgyr at a time when the latter is aiming to expand its Buy Now Pay Later offering and introduce lending products for its sellers as well. It added that Jazz and JazzCash would enable Dastgyr to scale its lending arm across Pakistan.

&quot;As part of VEON&#39;s transformation into a digital operator that delivers a growing range of services to our customers, we are investing in leading digital companies like Dastgyr in the countries where we operate. These investments are the building blocks of the digital ecosystem that will enable us to deliver on our strategy.

&ldquo;Pakistan, with its rapidly growing digital sector, is a key market for VEON. By bringing together Dastgyr&rsquo;s e-commerce business with Jazz&#39;s communications network and JazzCash&#39;s mobile payments platform, we will catalyse the growth in digital services in Pakistan. This will be further enhanced by the digital banking services that we have ambitions to provide,&quot; the press release quoted VEN Ventures CEO Mohd Khairil Abdullah as saying.

It added that Dastgyr aims to launch 15 new markets in Pakistan, along with its first international market, in 2022.

Fintech Dastgyr raises $37m in Series A round for biggest investment yet at this stage in Pakistan

Abu Dhabi-based Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider NymCard, has raised a $7.6 million Series A funding round, led by Shorooq Partners, with participation from OTF Jasoor Ventures and VentureSouq. This round takes the startup&rsquo;s total funding raised to date to $12 million.

Launched in 2017, NymCard delivers an API-based processing platform to financial institutions, banks, and fintechs that digitises payment card issuance helping them to cut costs and launch customer focused payment programmes in a timeframe of fewer than eight weeks.&nbsp; With its technology, NymCard helps fintechs and other emerging financial institutions make a full-scale foray into the market and accelerate their growth.

&ldquo;We have developed the tech stack ground-up giving us speed and agility that no other legacy player can match. Over the past two years, we have served regional banks and fintechs where one of our clients today is the fastest-growing issuer in Iraq and is the first neobank in the region,&rdquo; said Omar Onsi, founder and CEO of NymCard.

With the fresh funds, NymCard is planning to expand in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region.

NymCard received regulatory approvals from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) to be able to remove the regulatory friction from issuing payment cards to its clients.

Mahmoud Adi, founding partner of Shorooq Partners, said: &ldquo;NymCard is solving the problem of card issuance in the region by building a regulated, technological infrastructure that is highly specialised in this area. It allows the rest of the ecosystem to leverage their technology as a plug-and-play infrastructure to seamlessly build and launch card programs, democratising card issuance and payments.

&ldquo;The cash to card shift continues to be a main driver in digital transformation within the payments ecosystem in the region. As a result, multiple banks, NBFIs, and startups are rushing to extend card payment solutions to consumers. Card issuance and payment processing, however, it&rsquo;s a tightly controlled, highly regulated, and technologically complicated process and even the largest banks in the region take months to design and issue card programs. The NymCard technology addresses these issues and enables clients to adapt their models to the new environment efficiently and cost-effectively,&rdquo; he added.

NymCard raises $7.6 million in Series A

<ul>
	<li>UAE-based Banking as-a-Service (BaaS) provider NymCard, has raised $22.5 million in a venture round, led by DisruptAD, Reciprocal Ventures, and Shorooq Partners with participation from Chimera, DFDF, Knollwood, Endeavor Catalyst, OTF Jasoor Ventures, in addition to previous and other investors.</li>
	<li>Founded in 2018 by Omar Onsi and Ayman Chalhoub, NymCard enables fintech companies to plug-and-play ready finance into their applications through modern APIs.</li>
	<li>The new funds will help NymCard elevate its capabilities to provide Mena-based fintech with solutions.</li>
</ul>

Press release:

MENA-based Banking as-a-Service (BaaS) provider NymCard has raised $22.5 million in its latest funding round. This Venture round was led by DisruptAD - ADQ&#39;s venture platform, Reciprocal Ventures, and Shorooq Partners with participation from Chimera, DFDF, Knollwood, Endeavor Catalyst, OTF Jasoor Ventures, in addition to previous and other investors. This round takes NymCard&#39;s total Funding to over $35 million.

Founded in 2018 by technology entrepreneur Omar Onsi, NymCard&#39;s Platform enables FinTechs to plug and play ready finance into their applications through modern APIs. This enables their clients to focus on building their product proposition rather than deal with complex payment rails.

NymCard currently supports some of the region&#39;s most innovative financial institutions with emerging use cases, including gig economy, multi-currency, money transfers, corporate expense cards, on-demand delivery services, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) offerings, and youth banking applications in addition to many more. Omar Onsi, CEO and Founder of NymCard, commenting on the investment, said, &quot;This is only the beginning of NymCard&#39;s journey and a sign that we are solving major pain points for FinTechs in this region. As we move towards a $7Trn embedded finance market, we aim to evolve and enhance our offering to transform the payments industry and serve our client&#39;s needs in the region.&quot;&nbsp;

NymCard is aimed at further supporting the region&#39;s fintech ecosystem, which is experiencing rapid growth with venture investments growing year on year. Josh Kuzon, Partner at Reciprocal Ventures shared his thoughts on the matter, &quot;At Reciprocal, we back founders who are charting new paths for our financial system, and we&#39;re thrilled to support Nymcard, a foundational fintech company focused on the Middle East and Africa regions. NymCard&#39;s modern payment infrastructure will enable a cycle of innovation in these burgeoning tech markets in the coming decade.&rdquo;&nbsp;

The new funds will help NymCard in enabling MENA-based FinTechs with the infrastructure required from BIN Sponsorship, Card Issuing, Program Management, Compliance, FX, and Treasury, leveraging its APIs. With a presence in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh, Cairo, and Karachi, NymCard intends to use these funds to further grow its teams and strengthen its service in core markets. &ldquo;We feel that next-generation FinTech solutions will continue to replace legacy technology, and the experienced leadership at NymCard recognized this early on, and we&#39;re excited to work with Omar and the team at NymCard as they enable the future of finance in the MENA region,&quot; concluded Kuzon.&nbsp;

UAE fintech NymCard raises $22.5 million

Cash is the predominant method of sending and receiving payments in the Middle East. If you owe someone a cup of coffee or a trip over a long period, repaying via cash is your best bet. This is one problem out of many financial issues that haven&rsquo;t been addressed in the region.

The good news is that startups are springing up to provide solutions. Last month Telda, a now two-month-old startup in Egypt, raised an impressive sum as pre-seed to offer digital banking services. Today, Ziina, another startup based in Dubai, has closed $7.5 million in seed funding to scale its peer-to-peer (P2P) payment service across the Middle East and North Africa.

Ziina has managed to enlist top global investors and fintech founders in the round. Avenir Growth and Class 5 Global led this latest tranche of financing. Wamda Capital, FJ Labs, Graph Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Jabbar Internet Group, Oman Technology Fund&rsquo;s Jasoor Ventures, and ANIM also participated.

The founders who took part include Checkout CEO Guillaume Pousaz via his investment fund Zinal Growth; Krishnan Menon, BukuKas CEO, as well as executives from Paypal and Venmo. This adds to a roster of executives and early employees from Revolut, Stripe, Brex, Notion and Deel that joined Ziina&rsquo;s round.

According to the company, it has raised over $8.6 million since launching last year. This includes the $850,000 pre-seed raised in May 2020 and $125,000 secured after going through Y Combinator&rsquo;s Winter batch early this year.

Ziina was founded by Faisal Toukan, Sarah Toukan and Andrew Gold. It&rsquo;s the latest addition to the Middle East&rsquo;s bubbling fintech ecosystem and is capitalising on the region&rsquo;s rapid adoption of fintech-friendly regulation. The company allows users to send and receive payments with just a phone number &mdash; no IBAN or swift code required as is the de facto method in the UAE and some parts of the Middle East.

After meeting during a hackathon in the U.S., Faisal and Gold began exchanging ideas on how to build wallets, wanting to mirror the successes platforms like WePay and Paytm have had. At the time, VCs seemed to be interested in how the wallets ecosystem intersected with banking.

&ldquo;The lines between wallets and banking have become really blurred. Every wallet has a banking partner, and people who use wallets use them for their day-to-day needs,&rdquo; CEO Faisal Toukan said to TechCrunch.

On the other hand, Sarah, who is Faisal&rsquo;s sister, was on her personal fintech journey in London. There, she attended several meetups headlined by the founders of Monzo and Revolut. With her knowledge and the experience of the other two, the founders decided that solving P2P payments issues was their own way of driving massive impact in the Middle East.

So how far have they gone? &ldquo;We launched a beta for the market that&rsquo;s restricted for regulatory reasons,&rdquo; Toukan remarked. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re in the process of getting regulated. We&rsquo;ve got a banking partner, one of the three largest banks in the UAE, and we&rsquo;ve set a new wallet to launch a month from now. That&rsquo;s also what we were working throughout our period in YC. So it&rsquo;s been quite an eventful year.&rdquo;

The fintech sector in MENA is growing fast; in terms of numbers, at a CAGR of 30%. Also, in the UAE, it is estimated that over 450 fintech companies will raise about $2 billion in 2022 compared to the $80 million raised in 2017. Fintechs in the region are focused on solving payments, transfers and remittances. Alongside its P2P offering, these are the areas Ziina wants to play in, including investment and cryptocurrency services.

According to Toukan, there&rsquo;s no ease of making online investments, and remittances are done in exchange houses, a manual process where people need to visit an office physically. &ldquo;So what we&rsquo;re looking to do is to bring all these products to life in the UAE and expand beyond that. But the first pain point we&rsquo;re solving for is for people to send and receive money with two clicks,&rdquo; the CEO affirmed.

Starting with P2P has its own advantages. First, peer-to-peer services is a repeat behavioural mechanism that allows companies to establish trust with customers. Also, it&rsquo;s a cheaper customer acquisition model. Toukan says that as Zinna expands geographically &mdash; Saudi Arabia and Jordan in 2022; and Egypt and Tunisia some years from now &mdash; as he wants the company&rsquo;s wallet to become seamless across borders. &ldquo;We want a situation where if you move into Saudi or Dubai, you&rsquo;re able to use the same wallet versus using different banking applications,&rdquo; he added.

YC-backed Ziina raises $7.5M seed led by Avenir Growth Capital and Class 5 Global

Wamda has invested in UAE-based peer-to-peer (P2P) payment application Ziina&rsquo;s seed funding round, which was led by the Oman Technology Fund (OTF)-backed Jasoor Ventures. Other investors who participated in this round include Class 5 Global, Long Journey Ventures, Graph Ventures, Jabbar Internet Group and FJ Labs.

Founded in 2020 by Faisal Toukan, Sarah Toukan and Andrew Gold, Ziina offers its users in the UAE simplified P2P payment services. The startup intends to increase its product offering to serve freelancers and small businesses, grow its team, expand its footprint going into 2021, with plans to expand to Saudi Arabia and Jordan by 2022.

&ldquo;One of our missions at Ziina is linking the best talent and resources of the UAE with those of Silicon Valley. We&rsquo;ve seen the UAE take a highly proactive approach to supporting the fintech ecosystem and we are thrilled to be a part of it,&rdquo; said Faisal Toukan, CEO and co-founder of Ziina.

&ldquo;Coupled with this, we&rsquo;ve received an enthusiastic response from VCs and angel investors during our latest funding round and are incredibly grateful for their support. This will contribute to supercharging Ziina&rsquo;s growth in the year ahead, achieving the goals we&rsquo;ve set. Through Ziina we want to help redefine the way people in the Middle East think of, interact with and experience financial services. Our company is founded on the belief that everyone should have access to the next generation of financial services,&rdquo; he added.

Ziina is the third UAE startup to be recognised by Silicon Valley&rsquo;s startup accelerator Y-Combinator, and is participating in its Winter 2021 batch.

&ldquo;The participation with Y-Combinator is a game changer for Ziina and we are thrilled that we have fallen into the very small bracket of companies who are accepted. We&rsquo;re excited to tap into Y-Combinator&rsquo;s larger network, including its exceptional talent and investor pools. Furthermore, it also allows us to have access to mentors from top technology companies, which will propel Ziina to an even higher level when it comes to scaling our operations,&rdquo; said Toukan.

Wamda participates in Ziina’s seed round

Fundraise led by Global Ventures and Wa&rsquo;ed Ventures, the venture capital arm of Aramco.Riyadh, Saudi Arabia &ndash;&nbsp; September 21, 2022&nbsp;&ndash; Elevatus, the Saudi-based technology company with industry-leading video interviewing and recruitment software for the HR sector, announces it has completed a $10.5 million, Series A fundraise. The funding round was co-led by Global Ventures &ndash; a leading MEA-focused venture capital firm &ndash; and Wa&rsquo;ed Ventures &ndash; the venture capital arm of Aramco. An additional investor was otf Jasoor Ventures. With this capital injection, the HR tech provider aims to accelerate its business expansion and expand its market share. It also strives to broaden its reach by entering new markets, investing in product innovation, and propelling the advancement of HR tech.

Launched in 2019, and led by co-founders Yara Burgan, Yacoub Zureikat, and Yanal Kashou &ndash; Elevatus&rsquo; next-generation AI technology streamlines the full hiring process. This enables companies to centralize core recruitment functions in one place, tackle their biggest hiring challenges, and recruit dependable top talent in less time. Elevatus has rapidly become the go-to solution for over 150 companies including blue-chip brands such as Samsung, RE/MAX, Omantel, Arab Bank, Dr. Suleiman Al-Habib Medical Group, Virgin Mobile, King Abdullah University of Science &amp; Technology, and STC Academy. It has also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.elevatus.io/blog/10-integrations-with-elevatus-hiring-technology/">integrated its technology with world-class technology providers</a>&nbsp;such as SAP, Oracle, Zoom, Slack, DocuSign, Google Meet, Glassdoor, Indeed, and more. Elevatus, which began its operations over three years ago, has helped companies worldwide conduct over 3 million video assessments and recruit thousands of candidates to date.

It also improved its AI algorithm accuracy from 65% to 94% over the course of three years. In addition, Elevatus has also grown its headcount by three times. Yara Burgan, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Elevatus, said: &ldquo;Our team of high-caliber talent is shaping the future of HR. From day one, we were confident that Elevatus would exponentially succeed and reach even bigger heights. We took great strides in identifying client needs and adapting to the marketplace. Elevatus is meeting those needs head on; through our best-of-breed AI solutions that offer the right level of scalability, innovation, and agility &ndash; to help us accommodate and grow.&rdquo; Elevatus is a holistic SaaS solution that offers two core AI-powered solutions; an award-winning&nbsp;<a href="https://www.elevatus.io/evarec-hiring-platform/">hiring platform</a>&nbsp;EVA-REC and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.elevatus.io/evassess-video-interviewing-software/">video interviewing software</a>&nbsp;EVA-SSESS.

EVA-REC helps enterprise companies streamline recruitment functions such as: creating requisitions, automating workflows, filtering resumes, shortlisting candidates, streamlining approvals, sending offers, and onboarding new hires before day one. EVA-REC is at the forefront of its sector, with a scope and maturity that are competing with recruiting solutions of top global peers such as SAP and Oracle. EVA-SSESS is a secure and unbiased video interviewing software that helps companies identify, hire, and rapidly develop top talent via AI-powered video assessments.

EVA-SSESS has a unique AI-matching algorithm that is highly intuitive, comprehensive, and currently unmatched in the world. This core and novel AI algorithm is offered as an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), so organizations can enhance and advance their existing systems and accelerate their hiring innovatively.&nbsp;Noor Sweid, the Managing Partner of Global Ventures, said:&ldquo;We are thrilled to welcome Elevatus to the portfolio. In 2021, we witnessed the growth and maturing of the global HR tech market, driven by new expectations from employees for experience-driven, frictionless application processes, and from employers for engaging and streamlined hiring. Capturing this opportunity is a brilliant team with an already-proven track record of building and scaling the business and demonstrable traction as well as a holistic product automating, optimizing and accelerating hiring processes for businesses globally.&rdquo;

Anurag Agarwal, Managing Director of otf Jasoor Ventures, commented:&nbsp;&ldquo;We are very happy to see the progress of Elevatus since leading their Pre-Series A round in July 2020 which coincided with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. The global impact of COVID-19 has been unprecedented and staggering and it led HR teams to adopt new ways to respond to the needs of the workforce. Elevatus plays a key role in enabling companies across the world to optimize hiring processes and attain cost reduction. We are confident Elevatus&rsquo; AI technology can be adapted globally and go beyond MENA.&rdquo;

otf Jasoor Ventures

Funding Deals, by Startup Growth Stage

Funding Deals, by Region

No. of Portfolio Companies

Total No. of Investments Globally, by Year

We Invest in Startups in the Following Stages

Statistics

Sectors we invest in

Top 5 sectors we invest in

Portfolio Companies
or Investments

Executive Team Members

Other Investors

About

Legal

Social Media

otf Jasoor Ventures

Funding Deals, by Startup Growth Stage

Funding Deals, by Region

No. of Portfolio Companies

Total No. of Investments Globally, by Year

We Invest in Startups in the Following Stages

Statistics

Sectors we invest in

Top 5 sectors we invest in

Portfolio Companies or Investments

Executive Team Members

Other Investors

About

Legal

Social Media

Portfolio Companies
or Investments