This year has kicked off with a relatively modest funding raise of $86.5 million across 33 deals, a 34 per cent decrease year on year. January is usually a slower month in terms of funding announcements, but it tends to be a good indicator of the momentum that awaits for the rest of the year. 

The UAE made a return to the top of the fundraising rankings with 10 of its startups raising $47 million in total, of which $35 million alone was down to Tumodo’s pre-Seed round, the largest funding round of the month. Fifteen startups based in Saudi Arabia managed to raise a total of $11 million, while Egypt showed signs of some recovery with  $23 million raised across seven deals, up from $13 million in December and about $4 million in January 2023.

Sector-wise, Tumodo’s round pushed traveltech to the top, followed by fintech which saw just five startups raising $12 million, a slowdown for the region’s most active sector. Two healthtech startups raised $11 million, meanwhile three mobility startups raised over $5 million.

Most of the deals in January were directed to pre-Seed and Seed stage startups in terms of deal volume accounting for almost $53 million of the total funding amount. B2B startups managed to raise over $57 million across 14 deals while B2C startups raised $28 million across 18 deals.

As ever, the amount of funding directed at female-founded startups was dismal, with just one managing to raise investment compared to 29 male-founded startups and three male and female co-founded companies. 

Last month, 14 startups did not disclose the amount they raised. We assigned a conservative amount of $100,000 to each. These include Be Unique, Bosta, Cargo, Edura, Million, Mile Solutions, nealthy, Samrise, Takado, TextTeo AI, Zaker, Cabrio. While Silkhaus and Clinicy were assigned $1 million each for their undisclosed rounds. 

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