Zest Wire | 19-March-2026

This week’s agenda

🗞️ Zest in the news

💰 Capital activity across MENA private markets

🤝 M&A highlights

📈 IPO returns across MENA since 2019

📖 What we’re reading

Market moves: Capital activity across MENA

• 🇦🇪 TruDoc Healthcare raises $15 million pre-Series B funding round from the Al Nahyan family, the Al-Ketbi family, and Pulsar Capital to support expansion across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, scale its at-home care infrastructure, and strengthen its integrated healthcare model.

• 🇦🇪 Utexo raises $7.5 million seed funding round led by Tether, with participation from Big Brain Holdings, Portal Ventures, Franklin Templeton, Maven11 Capital, and Fulgur Ventures, to support the expansion of its technology to enable faster, private, and low-cost stablecoin transactions for global payment providers.

• 🇸🇦 Muhlah raises $7.5 million seed round led by BIM Ventures and Japan’s SBI Group, with participation from AlSuhaimi Holding Group and Fakhr Investment Holding Company, to support the expansion of its financing capacity and the development of Shariah-compliant funding structures and partnerships.

• 🇲🇦 Weego raises $1.1 million funding round led by Azur Innovation Fund to support expansion into additional Moroccan cities, strengthen corporate transport services through WeegoLines, and prepare the platform for regional growth across Africa and beyond.

• 🇦🇪 Kudwa raises $1.1 million funding round backed by 1818 Venture Capital, F6 Ventures, Sparked VC, IM Fndg, and IVP to support product development, expanded integrations, and go-to-market scaling.

M&A highlights

• Converted, a US-based AI-powered advertising tech company, has acquired Mitcha, an Egyptian e-commerce platform supporting local designers, expanding its data-driven digital commerce ecosystem and accelerating the launch of its Converted Orders platform. Source.

The IPO Isn't the Exit. It's the Beginning.

MENA's IPO pipeline is ready, but company performance on listing day does not always determine long-term investor returns.

Post-IPO performance is quickly becoming the real measure of value for private market investors, and it's forcing a harder look at how companies are priced, governed, and structured on the way out.

For investors and fund managers, the question is no longer can this company go public, but it's what happens after it does.

Read the full report here.