INFOGRAPHIC: Startup Funding in Africa and the Middle East — Week 30, 2025
Here are the venture funding activities we tracked in the Middle East and African region this week – including Exodigo, Qlub, Octup, Lime Consumer Finance, Flend, ZabonEx, SafaQat, and PALM.
While the Middle East funding landscape is off to a great start, with Israel, as always, taking the lead due to their stronghold in deep tech and infrastructure innovation, Africa is playing it cautiously, with Egypt being the major face this week. Still, both regions saw meaningful activity across fintech, logistics, health tech, and AI, with early-stage and growth rounds driving most of the momentum.
Starting with the Middle East, Tel Aviv’s underground mapping technology startup, Exodigo, closed a hefty $96 million Series B round co-led by Zeev Ventures and Greenfield Partners, with participation from existing backers. The company is using underground AI to redefine infrastructure safety, and this raise sets them up for aggressive scale and product refinement.
Close behind Exodigo is the UAE fintech platform Qlub, which secured $30 million in a new funding round backed by Shorooq Partners, Cherry Ventures, Mubadala Investments, e&, and Legend Capital. This capital injection is aimed at fueling their global expansion, as the startup continues to grow its one-click payment solution across international markets.
Still in Israel the logistics AI space also saw movement, as Octup, a real-time operations platform for third-party logistics (3PL) providers, closed a $12 million seed round co-led by Shine Capital and JAL Ventures, with support from Stone Capital, Tal Ventures, and HCS Capital. The goal is to build what the company calls a “real-time OS” for logistics, essentially bringing smarter coordination and automation into the 3PL workflow.
Shifting focus to Africa, Cairo-based Lime Consumer Finance, a newly launched fintech under First Abu Dhabi Bank Group (FAB), raised $9.4 million in initial funding. Positioned as Egypt’s largest dedicated education financing platform, Lime is looking to fill a gap in student lending and expand its reach within the country’s growing fintech ecosystem.
Also in Egypt, Flend secured $3 million in seed funding through a blended round of equity and debt. The equity side was led by Egypt Ventures, alongside Camel Ventures, Sukna Ventures, Plus VC, and others, while the debt financing came from MSMEDA and local banks. The company plans to use the funds to expand digital SME lending and increase its footprint in underserved markets.
Notably, though, Oman quietly made its mark this week with two pre-seed rounds. First, ZabonEx, a predictive analytics startup for the food supply chain, raised $100,000 from Future Fund Oman and ITHCA Group to enhance its AI engine and grow strategic partnerships. Then, SafaQat, a digital procurement platform, received funding from Oman Future Fund and Idrak Group to scale its AI-driven infrastructure and break into government procurement.
Wrapping up the week’s funding activity is Egypt-based fintech PALM, which offers goal-based, incentivized saving through a gamified platform. The startup closed a seven-figure pre-seed round led by 4DX Ventures, with participation from Plus VC and several international angel investors.
