The amount invested in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) startups rebounded in July 2024, recording $355 million raised by 38 startups—a 206% rise month on month (MoM) and a more than 260% increase year on year (YoY).

In the face of a worldwide economic downturn and an imminent full-scale conflict between Israel and Iran, the MENA tech ecosystem has demonstrated remarkable resilience, as these anxieties were capped by the approaching Fed rate cut in September, which revived hopes for cash to flow back into the global markets.

Debt financing made up less than 1% of total investments last month, sending an optimistic message that the investment slump the MENA tech ecosystem saw at the beginning of the year is abating.

Egypt's leap to the top 

Despite several months of hardship, Egyptian entrepreneurs secured the highest funding in the region, raising $185 million over seven deals, $157.5 million of which went to one transaction made by MNT-Halan. However, it’s still a remarkable growth from last month’s $15 million raised through four deals. The UAE dropped to second place, with $96 invested in 12 startups.

Saudi startups experienced a dramatic decline in investment in July, garnering just $31 million over seven deals, sending them to fourth place behind Oman, which secured this ranking thanks to the $37 million raised by 44.01.

Fintech continues to hold its appeal

By examining the sectoral map, we can find that fintech remains the investors’ favourite, drawing up to $181 million invested in 16 startups. With $85 million investment in two startups, Web 3 providers came next. Deeptech and cleantech have leapfrogged to third and fourth positions, respectively, because of the large ticket sizes allocated for 44.01 and Intelmatix deals. However, e-commerce still holds its own when it comes to deal volume, with six e-commerce startups raising $15.7 million.

Investing in later stages was absent last month, while investing in early stages gained the attention of investors. The majority of investment went to seed-stage startups, with eight of them raising $96 million, closely followed by Series A receiving $91.7 million across eight deals. Meanwhile, five pre-Seed startups raised only $1.8 million.

The business-to-business (B2B) model attracted the most investment for the second consecutive month, with $345 million going to 27 B2B businesses. In contrast, only nine business-to-consumer (B2C) startups raised almost $8 million, while the remaining funds went to two B2B2C startups.

With less and less female entrepreneurs receiving support within the tech ecosystem, only two female-led startups raised $270,000 in July. Four male and female co-founded startups managed to secure $20.5 million, and the remaining amount went to male-led startups.

M&A

Last month saw some activity related to mergers and acquisitions (M&A), most of them took place in the Emirati ecosystem. The key deal was the acquisition of BitOasis by the India-based crypto exchange company CoinDCX. Power League Gaming was acquired by Muller & Phipps Middle East Group, and Lableb acquired Majarra.

These monthly reports are a collaboration between Wamda and Digital Digest.