This week’s agenda
🕐 What’s new with Zest?
💰 Capital activity across MENA private markets
🤝 M&A news
🧾 Data insights in private markets
📖 What we’re reading
🎤 What we’re listening to
What’s new with Zest?
Join us live: MENA's private markets playbook
MENA's private markets are moving fast. The structures moving regional capital today look different from two years ago, and most deal makers have not updated their playbook.
We are joining Carta to break down what's driving the shift and what it means for how deals get structured, held, and exited.
With:
Rawan Baddour, Co-Founder, Zest Equity
Peji Kanani, Regional Lead for Startups, Carta
Thursday, 25 June · 6:30 – 7:30 pm GST
Capital activity across MENA
🇦🇪 CNTXT AI closes $60 million Series A co-led by AI71 and BlueFive Capital, to accelerate product development, enter new markets, and deploy secure sovereign AI infrastructure for enterprise and government customers worldwide.
🇦🇪 Algebra AI raises $7 million from Infinity Constellation, BECO Capital, Silicon Badia, and Waseel Investments, to expand its managed AI services for mid-market businesses across the GCC and grow its AI engineering and operations teams.
🇲🇦 Agenz raises an oversubscribed $5 million seed round led by BREEGA, Attijariwafa Ventures, and Saviu Ventures, to expand beyond property data and transaction services into the financial infrastructure of real estate and build its operating system for the sector.
🇦🇪/🇸🇦 Sovra raises more than $2 million in pre-seed funding led by Pharsalus Capital, with participation from angel investors including Karim Atiyeh, Hisham Al-Falih, Hany Rashwan, and Naguib Sawiris, to expand its engineering and product teams ahead of the public launch of its self-custodial global dollar account for users across MENA.
🇦🇪 Rentify raises $2 million in a seed round backed by a syndicate of real estate and fintech investors, to launch Earn AI, an AI platform that automates rental revenue management - rent collection, tenant onboarding, payment reminders, and lease renewals - for landlords and property managers across the UAE.
M&A news
Foodics, a Saudi-based F&B SaaS platform, has completed the full acquisition of Norma AI, a Greece-based data intelligence startup built for the hospitality industry, to accelerate the development of its dedicated AI division. Source
WakeCap, a Saudi-based construction technology company, has acquired Frontline, a Singapore-based AI-powered construction planning software provider, to expand from real-time jobsite monitoring into project planning and optimization. Source
Data insights in private markets
Infrastructure SaaS spent a long stretch with funding concentrated in a handful of AI startups, and capital is now broadening back across the full infrastructure stack those workloads run on - from application infrastructure to data software and IT operations. Q1 2026 deal value more than doubled from the prior quarter, and with several large names now in the IPO pipeline, the public market could reopen after a long slowdown.
Read the full Q1 2026 Infrastructure SaaS report for the full story and what it signals for exits.
Where capital is flowing
Exits and liquidity
Value creation and returns
What we’re listening to
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