INFOGRAPHIC: Startup Funding in Africa and the Middle East—Week 34, 2025

One week it’s fintech, the next it’s mobility, but this time, the Middle East and Africa’s deal flow tilted toward gaming screens and solar grids.

Investors are moving beyond single-track bets and sketching out a broader map of the region’s economy. From billion-dollar clean energy pushes to studios betting on Africa’s growing youth audience, the money moving this week feels less like isolated deals and more like puzzle pieces falling into place.

Take Gathern in Saudi Arabia. The peer-to-peer vacation rental marketplace just closed a $72 million Series B, pushing its valuation to $266 million. Over in Kenya, CrossBoundary Energy (CBE) secured a $40 million equity-like investment from Impact Fund Denmark to grow its clean energy projects powering businesses across Africa.

Saudi Arabia’s food delivery giant Jahez also made headlines, landing a $40 million Shariah-compliant facility from the National Bank of Bahrain, money earmarked to finance its new headquarters over the next eight years.

And the energy wasn’t just in real estate, food, and energy. In Abu Dhabi, Professional.me, an HR tech platform, raised $3.1 million in seed funding led by Raha Beach Ventures, bringing its total raise to $4.6 million.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s creative economy got a double boost. Fahy Studios pulled in $1.75 million from Impact46 and Merak Capital to fuel its mobile game development, while Starvania Studios, an award-winning indie game studio, secured $1.1 million to expand into PC and console gaming and hire more local talent.

What ties these deals together is not just the money but the intent behind it. Each investment points to a region that is no longer waiting for the future to arrive; it is building it deal by deal, industry by industry. And if this week’s pace is anything to go by, the next chapter will only come faster