Zest Wire | 29-April-2026

This week’s agenda

🏁 How Khwarizmi Ventures Scales Co-Investments With Zest Equity

💰 Capital activity across MENA private markets

🤝 M&A news

🧾 Data insights in private markets

📖 What we’re reading

🎤 Conversations around the region

Capital activity across MENA

• 🇦🇪 Comfi raises $65 million pre-Series A combining equity and debt, with the equity portion led by Iliad Partners and participation from Yango Ventures and Raw Ventures, alongside a credit facility from Partners for Growth and a mezzanine facility structured by Shorooq with a regional family office, to scale its B2B embedded finance and BNPL platform for SMEs across MENA.

• 🇸🇦 Signit raises $15 million Series A led by Raed Ventures, with participation from STV, Seedra Ventures, Takamol Ventures, and Suhail Ventures, to expand its AI-powered contract lifecycle management capabilities and digital trust infrastructure across Saudi government and enterprise sectors.

• 🇴🇲 FASCANO closes $10 million third investment round with participation from His Highness Sayyid Dr. Kamel bin Fahd Al Said and Cyfr Capital, in partnership with the Future Fund Oman under the Oman Investment Authority, to support continued product development and expansion of its hospitality and F&B operational technology solutions across the region.

• 🇸🇦 Aya raises $7 million Series A round led by Raed Ventures, with participation from Nuwa Capital, Sanabil Investments (a wholly owned company of PIF), Khwarizmi Ventures, and Joa Capital, to expand into new product categories and scale its real-time, demand-driven production model across broader fashion and lifestyle segments.

• 🇧🇭 Lola raises $3 million seed round led by Vision Ventures, with participation from Aljazira Capital, Seedra Ventures, Plus VC, and other investors, to develop a central production facility in Dammam alongside a network of cloud bakeries and scale its customised cake platform across the GCC.

• 🇪🇬 Sinai.ai raises $1.45 million pre-seed round co-led by KAUST Innovation Ventures and DisrupTech Ventures, with participation from Maza Ventures, YOUXEL Ventures, and angel investors, to fund proprietary technology, AI infrastructure, licensing, and user acquisition for its AI-native adaptive reading platform.

• 🇦🇪 Ray raises $1.2 million seed round primarily from private investors including Meirambek Abelkasov and Serik Uspanov, co-founders of kick-sharing company JET, to expand its powerbank-sharing station network to 2,000 locations across the UAE and scale across the GCC.

• 🇪🇬 INVIA raises $1.2 million from angel investors and strategic backers, to accelerate product development, expand engineering and data capabilities, and scale customer acquisition for its AI-powered financial operating system serving SMEs across Egypt.

M&A news

• iSchool, an Egypt-based edtech offering live gamified coding classes for K-12 students, has acquired Rubikal, an Egypt-based software engineering firm specializing in real-time, scalable web applications, to accelerate the development of AI-powered education systems and bring Rubikal's 21 engineers and founding team in-house. Source.

• Tamatem, a Jordan-based mobile games publisher and the leading Arabic gaming company in the MENA region, has fully acquired Playable Factory, an Istanbul-based playable ads platform serving top global gaming companies, to integrate ad tech capabilities alongside its content, distribution, and payments infrastructure as it positions itself as an AI-first gaming platform. Source.

• PopArabia, the MENA partner to NASDAQ-listed Reservoir (NASDAQ: RSVR), has acquired Viral Wave, a UAE-headquartered digital music distribution platform and A15 portfolio company spun out of ARPUPlus, to expand distribution and label services capabilities across MENA in a deal marking A15's ninth exit. Source.

• Edafa Venture, a Saudi-Egyptian venture capital firm, has acquired Cyclex, an Egypt-based startup converting non-hazardous solid waste into economic value, in a six-figure deal facilitated by Startup Sync, to expand Edafa's sustainability and circular economy investment portfolio. Source.