Weekly Roundup: The Middle East tech news and startup deals

Techloy -

Here are the technology news, startup, and VC deals we tracked across the Middle East region this week:

  • Saudi-based Khwarizmi Ventures completed the second closing of its current fund valued at $70 million, to fuel early-stage startups across the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan region.
  • Israel-based Pecan AI, which offers a predictive analytics service for enterprises, raised $66 million in a Series C round, bringing its total funding to $117.5 million.
  • Saudi Arabia-based Nana, which fulfils online grocery orders from its dark stores and delivers within 15 minutes, raised $50 million in a round led by FIM Partners and STV, bringing its total funding to $80 million to date.
  • Saudi Arabia-based e-commerce platform Retailo, which aims to digitize mom-and-pop stores in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the UAE, raised a $36 million Series A round led by Graphene Ventures.
  • Israel-based Agritask raised $26 million in funding led by Liechtenstein Group, with participation from Bridges Israel, Smart Agro Fund, and others.
  • UAE-based mobility solutions provider SWVL raised an additional $21.5 million in private investment in public equity (PIPE) deal from a group of investors including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (“EBRD”), Agility, Luxor Capital Group, Chimera, and Zain, bringing the aggregate amount of expected PIPE proceeds to $121.5 million, to be used to fuel the company's growth strategy.
  • UAE-based fintech startup Qlub raised $17 million in a Seed round, co-led by Cherry Ventures and Point Nine.
  • Israel-based AI-based defect detection platform for manufacturers Vanti Analytics raised a $16 million Series A round led by Insight Partners, with participation from True Ventures and MoreVC.
  • Israeli's AI-powered virtual care management platform Sensi.ai raised $14 million in a Series A round led by Entrée Capital with participation from Flint Capital, Homeward Ventures, Almeda Ventures, Operator Partners, and others.
  • Pakistan's freight transport tech startup Truck It In closed a $13 million seed round jointly led by venture capital firms Global Founders Capital and Fatima Gobi Ventures.
  • Saudi Arabia-based AI startup Mozn, which provides AI solutions to help enterprises make better decisions, raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Raed Ventures, to be used to further enhance its Natural Language Understanding (NLU) engine and leverage its Arabic NLU and other languages across the globe.

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.