INFOGRAPHIC: Startup Funding in Africa and the Middle East — Week 22, 2025

Startup funding across Africa and the Middle East dropped again this week, with total disclosed deals sitting around $45 million, down from $80 million last week and far below the $525 million peak earlier in May. The slowdown isn’t surprising, but the pattern is clear: fewer rounds, more focus, and a shift toward startups solving grounded, regional problems.

Still, even with the drop, this week had a few notable deals worth unpacking.

In the UAE, Qashio raised $19.8 million in a strategic round combining equity and non-equity financing. The fintech, which offers corporate expense and B2B loyalty solutions, plans to use the funds to push deeper into regional markets. It’s a strong signal that enterprise-facing fintech in the Gulf is still pulling investor interest, especially when it comes with a built-in revenue model.

Saudi Arabia’s Stitch also pulled in a solid $10 million seed round. The fintech infrastructure platform—designed to help companies build and launch financial products—secured backing from Arbor Ventures, Raed Ventures, SVC, and other regional players. Stitch isn’t just raising to build; they’re expanding into emerging markets, where demand for customizable fintech rails is growing quickly.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Traceloop closed a $6.1 million seed round led by Sorenson Capital and Ibex Investors, with participation from Y Combinator, Samsung NEXT, and Grand Ventures. The startup builds tools to monitor LLM apps in production, solving a very real problem for teams deploying generative AI tools at scale.

Surprisingly, though, Africa saw fewer deals this week, but the funding that did come through was tied to practical, high-impact sectors. In Kenya, ARC Ride secured $5 million from British International Investment (BII) to grow its battery-swapping network for e-mobility. The company’s battery-as-a-service model is focused on making transport in dense, fast-growing cities more reliable and sustainable.

And here in Nigeria, Carrot Credit raised $4.2 million in seed funding to expand its collateral-backed lending platform. The round was led by MaC Venture Capital, with Authentic Ventures also on board. As access to credit remains a challenge across much of Africa, platforms like Carrot are betting on asset-based lending as a safer, more scalable model.

Also from Nigeria, construction tech startup Cutstruct raised $1.5 million in seed funding to scale its operations. The round was led by CRE Venture Capital, with backing from E3 Capital, Techstars, and Zedcrest. Cutstruct is rethinking how materials are sourced and moved across construction sites—bringing structure to a sector often held back by delays and opacity.

And still in Nigeria, Tespire secured funding from Alternative Bank to scale its research project Asibiti, which targets one of the most complex issues in Nigeria’s health system. While the exact funding amount wasn’t disclosed, this marks a major step forward for the startup, which previously raised a pre-seed round and signed a global MoU with Alternative Bank last year.

Other rounds across the region included Saudi-based BirdEye, which raised $586,000 in pre-seed funding to support retail digital transformation; Qatar’s PayLater, which secured a strategic investment from LuLu AI to grow its lending products; and UAE-based Gainz, which closed a 7-figure USD pre-seed round led by Antler MENAP and Lithium Holdings to scale its fintech suite.

Although the top-line numbers are lower, this week felt more focused and targeted. What we’re seeing is money moving into infrastructure, both digital and physical. Fintech pipes, AI monitoring tools, and e-mobility platforms. Real-world stuff that actually needs building.

So, while the funding climate might look dry on paper, under the surface, some serious groundwork is getting laid, and the startups getting funded now might be the ones shaping the next chapter.