Weekly Roundup: Middle East startup and VC deals
Here are the startup and VC deals we tracked across the Middle East region this week.
- 🇮🇱 Israeli battery maker StoreDot has raised $80 million in a Series D funding round led by Vietnamese EV maker VinFast.
- 🇦🇪 UAE-based blockchain provider VEROFAX has raised $1.5 million in a pre-Series A round, led by Benson Oak Ventures, with participation from 500 Global, Wami Capital, and Vernalis Capital, to expand its sales and marketing activities globally, ahead of a planned Series A round.
- 🇮🇱 Google is acquiring Israeli cybersecurity startup Siemplify for $500 million, making it the tech giant's first foray into the cybersecurity sector in Isreal.
- 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia's Shuttle, a freight and logistics startup closed a SAR3.75 million ($1 million) Bridge to Seed round led by Impact46 with participation from regional investors, to improve its IoT infrastructure and cover more areas in the country.
- 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia-based B2B e-commerce marketplace Sary raised $75 million in a Series C round led by Sanabil Investments, just seven months after raising its $30.5 million Series B round, to be used to invest in its product development and geographical expansion.
- 🇮🇱 Israel's Future Meat Technologies, a biotech firm that produces cultured meat from chicken cells, raised $347 million in a Series B funding round from ADM Ventures and others, to build a US production facility for its cell-grown meat products.
- 🇴🇲 Oman’s first food delivery app, Akeed raised $2.5 million in a Series A round from Phaze Ventures and IDO (Sovereign Fund).
- 🇮🇱 Israel’s technology firms saw a 520% surge in the number of exits in 2021, reaching a total value of $82.4 billion, up from $15.4 billion in 2020, according to PwC Israel.
- 🇮🇱 Israeli's First Digital Bank, an AI-based digital bank aspiring to democratize access to private banking, raised $120 million from Swiss wealth management group Julius Baer, Japanese financial conglomerate SBI, and China-based tech firm Tencent, at a valuation of $320M.
- 🇮🇱 Israeli-based Agtech startup Greeneye, which provides AI-enabled precision spraying technology for agricultural applications, raised $22 million in funding led by JVP.
- 🇵🇰 Pakistani fintech startup Creditbook, which provides digital bookkeeping services, raised $11 million in a pre-series A round co-led by Tiger Global.
- 🇮🇱 Israel-based data analytics platform SQreamTech announced its acquisition of no-code cloud data platform Panoply for an undisclosed sum.
The Draft provides a weekly roundup of the most important tech news across key emerging markets in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Follow the rest of our coverage @techloy on Twitter.
