Zest Your Equity | 03-September-2025

This week’s agenda 📜

• Liquidation preferences: what you need to know ✍️

• Who’s raising? 💰

• M&A activity 💼

• What we’re reading 📖

Let’s dive in 👇

Liquidation preferences: what you need to know ✍️

When a startup achieves a successful exit, whether that be an acquisition, IPO, or secondary sale, founders and employees often dream of large paydays. We’ve all seen the news headlines celebrating nine or ten-figure acquisitions. Everyone must walk away with a payout, right? Not necessarily.

Before the celebration can begin, there's a complex reality that determines who gets paid, how much, and in what order.

This hierarchy of payouts is governed by a mechanism known as liquidity preferences.

Whether you're a founder raising capital or an investor negotiating terms, understanding how liquidation preferences work can help you set yourself up for a successful financial outcome upon an exit. Read our full article as we explain how liquidation preferences work and what to watch out for in a term sheet.

Who’s raising? 💰

• 🇸🇦 Gathern, a P2P vacation rental platform from Saudi Arabia, has secured $72 million in Series B funding at a $266 million valuation to accelerate inbound tourism expansion amidst IPO preparations. 

• 🇦🇪 UAE-based proptech Holo closed a $22 million Series A round led by Saudi’s Impact46, supported by Mubadala, Rua Growth Fund, anb seed, MoreThan Capital, and returning backers, to supercharge its digital homeownership platform across the GCC. 

• 🇦🇪 Dubai’s autotech rental platform WheelsOn secured $12.5 million, including $2.2 million equity from MENA‑focused private investors (among them Xploration Capital partners), $6.5 million for fleet growth, and $4 million in bank financing, to accelerate its AI‑driven, deposit‑free digital car rental rollout. 

• 🇸🇦 Riyadh‑headquartered AI startup Intella closed an oversubscribed $12.5 million Series A led by Prosus, with backing from 500 Global, Wa’ed, Hala, Idrisi, and HearstLab, to scale its Arabic‑dialect speech AI and expand across the MENA region. 

• 🇸🇦 Saudi Device‑as‑a‑Service pioneer Zetta raised $12 million in a funding round led by Core Vision Investment and Ab’ad Al‑Watan Investment to expand its subscription-based hardware services across the Kingdom. 

• 🇦🇪 Edtech startup Cointel out of the UAE raised $7.4 million in a strategic round led by Avalanche and Sugafam Inc. to scale its AI-powered crypto education and trading platform globally. 

• 🇦🇪 Maalexi, a UAE-based B2B agri‑fintech, secured a Shariah-compliant credit facility of up to $20 million from Amwal Capital, with an initial $5 million tranche to bolster cross-border SME food trading and regional food security. 

• 🇪🇬 Egyptian fintech Munify raised $3 million in seed funding led by Y Combinator (with BYLD and Digital Currency Group), propelling its cross-border neobank services for Egyptians abroad. 

• 🇦🇪 Dubai-based proptech Seraya closed an $1.8 million seed round, combining equity and debt from a Saudi and German family office, to scale its design-focused serviced apartments in the premium short‑term rental market. 

• 🇸🇦 Saudi indie game studio Starvania Studios raised $1.1 million from Merak Capital and Impact46 to ramp up PC/console game production and grow its storytelling-focused development team. 

• 🇲🇦 Morocco‑based cross‑border e‑commerce startup Justyol has raised a $1 million blend of $400K in angel equity and $600K in inventory financing from Turkey’s Danis Group to fuel its expansion across North Africa.

M&A activity 💼

• Saudi Arabia-based VC Impact46 has acquired the Saudi game development studio "Kammelna" for $53 million. Source.

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