Zest Your Equity | 03-Jan-2024

Zest is digitizing private market transactions, building tools to streamline how entrepreneurs, funds and investors transact. Our platform is designed to save you time and reduce administrative costs, simplifying the end-to-end investment process.

What’s New?

MAGNiTT published their inaugural 2023 venture capital fundraising results where they compare their 2023 expectations with what transpired over the past 12 months.

Excluding mega-fundraising rounds (>$100M), total MENA fundraising ended up around $1.4B, a 27% increase over MAGNiTT’s expectations when they wrote about it halfway through the year.

The region finished strong with surging capital deployment in Q4, led by Saudi and the UAE which drove 79% of the total capital deployed in the region during H2 2023.

Though total capital deployment in 2023 fell below 2021 and 2022 levels, investment in the region bounced back considerably towards the end of the year beyond what most analysts had predicted.

Who’s Raising? 💰

• UAE-founded and Saudi Arabia-headquartered fintech Tabby has secured a $700 million debt financing round from J.P. Morgan, ahead of its planned initial public offering (IPO) in the kingdom.

• Saudi Arabia-based re-commerce marketplace Soum, has raised $18 million in Series A funding in a round led by Jahez, with participation from Isometry Capital along with existing investors Khwarizmi Ventures, Alrajhi Partners, and Outliers Venture Capital. 

• Saudi Arabia-based fintech Tameed has raised $15 million in a Series A round, led by Alromaih Investments.

• Saudi Arabia-based fintech Hakbah, has raised $5.1 million in Series A funding, bringing the company’s funding raised to date to $9 million.

• Bahrain-based, Spare, the pioneering open banking services provider, recently announced the close of a $3 million funding round led by Vision Ventures with participation from Wa’ed Ventures, Seedra Ventures, global investment firm 500 Global, and notable angel investors.

• UAE-based analytics platform Trends, backed by LuckyDodo, has secured $1 million in funding from several investors at the DIFC Innovation Hub.

M&A Activity 💼

• Two prominent Abu Dhabi-based companies, Bayanat and Yahsat, have officially announced their decision to merge, creating one of the world’s most valuable space companies. Source and more.

• UAE-based cryptocurrency mining and blockchain company Phoenix Group PLC has acquired a 25 per cent stake in the social networking and content monetisation platform Lyvely. Source.

• Egypt-based B2B e-commerce company MaxAB will merge with Kenya-based Wasoko. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Source.

What We’re Reading 📖

Our Blog 💬

With all of the recent activity in private markets that we’ve been hearing about, we thought it’d be helpful to cover some of the most common questions we come across when investors or founders are setting up SPVs.

For starters, what is an SPV?

In our most recent blog post, we uncover what an SPV is, the legal structures of this unique vehicle, the difference between an SPV and a fund, and more.

Check out our blog and let us know what you found most helpful about it!

Want to learn more? Schedule a time with our team below!