Nine startups raised $67.6 million this week, and every deal targeted a gap most venture capital won't touch. Workers are locked out of wages they've already earned. $48 billion in African food rotting before reaching markets. Indian restaurants manage 700,000 establishments with pen and paper. The funding went to companies building solutions for these problems.
Egypt's NowPay landed $20 million through a joint venture with Tas'heel. Mostafa Ashour's platform lets workers access earned wages before payday—a problem affecting 13 million Saudi workers as the company expands into the Kingdom through NowAccess. Total funding now stands at $31 million.
Kenya's Cold Solutions Kiambu secured $19 million from Mirova's Gigaton Fund. The 15,000-pallet facility in Tatu City addresses Africa's $48 billion annual food waste crisis. The facility runs on ammonia refrigerants and 30% solar power—climate-smart infrastructure that actually works.
Dubai's Eat App raised $10 million to enter India's $56 billion restaurant market. Nezar Kadhem's platform serves 6,000 restaurants globally. India has 700,000. Most still use notebooks.
OpenCX closed $7 million ahead of Saudi Arabia expansion. Mohammad Gharbat and Mohammad Tabaza built an AI that automates 70% of customer communication—voice, chat, email, messaging—as Vision 2030 pushes enterprise AI adoption.
Saudi Grove secured $5 million in seed funding led by Outliers VC. The Kingdom's $31.5 billion agriculture sector imports $10.7 billion in plant products because local supply chains are broken. Grove fixes that through tech-enabled logistics.
OneDosh raised $3 million in pre-seed to build stablecoin payment rails between the U.S. and Nigeria. The corridor processes $25 billion annually at 5-8% fees through Western Union and MoneyGram. OneDosh bypasses them.
Breez AI raised $1.3 million, led by Wamda Capital, on January 22. Karim Malhas's platform helps companies automate phone calls. Phone calls still account for 55% of customer service interactions, but most companies can't deploy voice AI because they need to connect multiple vendors—one for phone routing, another for AI processing, and another for call recording. Breez AI unifies everything into one no-code system.
Saudi GBT closed $1.3 million on January 21 from Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al-Zamil & Sons Investment. Yousef AlNafjan's company provides mapping software and location data analysis for smart cities. Saudi Arabia's market for this tech is worth $1.5 billion today and growing to $2.5 billion by 2030 as Vision 2030 megaprojects need precise location data.
Egypt's KNOT Technologies secured $1 million led by A15 on January 20. Ahmed Abdalla and Hussein ElBendak's AI prevents ticketing fraud as billions leak into unregulated resale markets annually.
This week's nine deals prove capital still backs companies already serving customers or targeting markets where existing solutions remain inadequate. Wage access for millions. Food waste prevention. Payment infrastructure. Voice automation. The funding went where it matters—not to promises, but to problems people hit daily.
