Startups across Africa and the Middle East raised a combined $27.4 million this week, based on disclosed funding rounds tracked by Techloy, with investor capital flowing into fashion tech, cybersecurity, clean energy, and healthtech. Early-stage deals made up the bulk of the week's activity, spanning Saudi Arabia, Israel, South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, and Qatar.
The Week's Largest Startup Funding Rounds
Here are the biggest disclosed startup funding rounds across Africa and the Middle East this week.
/1. Aya, $7 million (SAR 26 million), Fashion E-commerce, Saudi Arabia
Aya is a Saudi e-commerce platform that tests over 700 clothing designs each month and only moves into production on the ones customers actually respond to, cutting out the waste that most traditional fashion brands build into their process. The Series A was led by RAED Ventures and joined by Nuwa Capital, Sanabil Investments, Joa Capital, and Khwarizmi Ventures, and will go toward expanding into new product categories and scaling the model across broader fashion and lifestyle segments.
/2. Capsule Security, $7 million, Cybersecurity, Israel
Capsule Security monitors AI agents as they operate within company systems in real time and steps in when they begin acting outside approved limits, leaking sensitive data, or being manipulated by external inputs. The Tel Aviv startup, founded in 2025 by Naor Paz and Lidan Hazout, raised the seed round led by Lama Partners and Forgepoint Capital International and will use the capital to grow its team and reach more enterprise customers already deploying AI agents at scale.
/3. Refiant, $5 million, AI and Clean Tech, South Africa
Refiant compresses large AI models using nature-inspired algorithms so they can run on regular commercial hardware rather than the energy-intensive data centres most AI workloads depend on, cutting power consumption by more than 80 percent without gutting performance. The South Africa-founded startup raised the seed round from California-based climate technology investor VoLo Earth Ventures and will use the money to expand its platform, grow its engineering team, and deepen partnerships with enterprise clients.
/4. AI Diagnostics, R85 million ($4.7 million), Healthtech, South Africa
AI Diagnostics makes the Ostium, an AI-powered digital stethoscope that nurses and community health workers can use to screen for tuberculosis by analysing lung sounds on the spot, without needing a specialist or additional clinical equipment. The Cape Town company raised its pre-Series A from The Steele Foundation for Hope, the iFSP Group, the Global Innovation Fund, Africa Health Ventures, and Savant, and will use the funding for clinical research, hardware development, and scaling across sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia.
/5. Jozo, $2.21 million (SAR 8.3 million), Proptech, Saudi Arabia
Saudi real estate has long been out of reach for everyday investors who cannot afford to buy property outright. Jozo is changing that by letting people purchase smaller digital shares of real estate assets instead, and the company already has a notable first to its name, having issued the first private-sector tokenised real estate deed in the country. Founded in 2024 by Turki Al-Shlail and Fahad Almansour, the startup closed its seed round with Sheikh Hamad Bin Saedan Real Estate Co. coming in as a strategic partner. The fresh capital goes into building out the technology and scaling the platform nationally.
/6. INVIA, $1.2 million, Fintech, Egypt
INVIA builds a financial management platform for small and medium-sized businesses that pulls bookkeeping, cash flow tracking, inventory, and manufacturing management into one place, letting owners handle their finances through text, voice notes, or uploaded invoices without needing a dedicated accountant. Founded in 2023 by Yehia Ashour, Ahmed Zeinhom, and Omar Aboulmagd, the startup raised funding from angel investors and strategic backers and will put the money toward product development and reaching more SMEs across Egypt.
/7. NectarFi, $170,000, Crypto and Fintech, Nigeria
NectarFi is a Lagos-based platform built on the Solana blockchain that brings savings, spending, cross-border transfers, trading, and investing into one app for crypto users, with plans to build a credit system based on each user's transaction history rather than traditional bank records. The startup raised early funding alongside its public launch, having already onboarded more than 1,000 users across Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, and Argentina during a private testing phase.
/8. Sufra AI, $100,000, Food Tech, Qatar
Sufra AI gives restaurant diners a smart menu through a QR code that learns their preferences, handles ordering and payment in one flow, and gives restaurant owners real-time data on spending patterns, with the potential to lift average order values by 20 to 30 percent. The Doha-based startup was founded by Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar graduates Ekaterina Demenkova and Jemal Velihanova and secured the pre-seed from Snoonu as the first deal under its new Startup Factory initiative, which also comes with mentorship and direct access to Snoonu's market network.
Other funding announced this week includes PowerLabs and AVA, although amounts were not disclosed. PowerLabs is a Nigerian energy startup rolling out an AI-powered energy management platform for commercial and industrial businesses, backed by Breega, Catalyst Fund, Mercy Corps Ventures, and Kaleo Ventures, with expansion into West Africa next. AVA is a Saudi fintech that secured a strategic investment from Plug and Play Middle East after graduating from its accelerator, with capital going toward product development and regional growth.
Conclusion
With $27.4 million in disclosed funding this week, the money spread across more countries than usual, with Saudi Arabia and South Africa each contributing multiple deals and Qatar, Egypt, Nigeria, and Israel all adding to the total. Early-stage rounds defined the week, and the range of sectors getting funded points to investor appetite in the region, broadening rather than settling around any single sector.
Damilare Odedina
